Time and All Its Complexities
by LionessoftheEast
Summary: While looking for pictures of their grandparents, Albus and Lily accidentally break a time turner. They're sent to the past, Lily taking the place of Lily Evans and Albus taking the place of Harry. But what happens to the people they've replaced? And how will they get home? Time Travel.
1. Chapter 1

Hi! So this is my first attempt at a multi-chapter story. I hope to update at least every two weeks. Please review! Thanks.

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><p>Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter or any plots and characters.<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>It was a normal summer afternoon in the Potter household that day. The sun peaked out from the clouds, a relief after a fortnight of rain. Harry was at the Ministry, working overtime to accumulate a week off to spend with his children. Ginny sat at her desk in the study, fingers tapping away at the keys of a typewriter, finishing her column on the Chudley Cannons tenth losing season in as many years. The only thing strange about the whole scene was that James, Albus and Lily were inside also, rather than chasing after muggle ice cream trucks or playing Quidditch in the yard in the back, which they shared with the Longbottoms and George and Angelina Weasley.<p>

It was no accident that the three Potter children were inside for the day. In fact, they had voluntarily locked the front door and closed the blinds. James joked that it was for a demon summoning ritual, at which Albus replied that it had been proven that demons weren't real, and Lily said that it was an impractical place to perform a summoning, as the blood needed to draw the pentagram would stain the carpet and give them away. They had pulled it off quite well, but James knew they were joking. His siblings did have some sense of humor, no matter how small.

In fact, the reason the siblings were inside on a nice summer day was not particularly magical at all. Actually, it was a common problem among muggle celebrities, though on a larger scale. The truth was, a cameraman for Witch Weekly had spotted the three children walking around the muggle parts of Godric's Hollow, and had decided to follow them. Using James's crazy ideas, Albus's knowledge of physics, and Lily's strategies, they had managed to the escape the cameras and slip into their house, which paparazzi was not allowed to come near.

The siblings had gone their separate ways, James upstairs to test some of the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products that Uncle George had sent over, Albus to floo Rose and have a debate about whether or not flooing should be allowed without permission, as Albus had apparently entered her room while she was doing her hair, and Lily, bored to death, to examine the pictures on the fireplace mantel for the umpteenth time.

She had memorized each of the pictures on the mantelpiece, as it was usually what she did when she was bored. As much as Lily liked plotting her enemies' downfalls, James was the idea guy. She was the one who planned out how exactly they were going to pull it off without getting caught. She didn't like to reread books over and over again like Albus either, even though she did like to read. All together, it was a recipe for boredom.

The first picture was her parent's wedding picture. They were young, but not as young as her grandparents. Dad was laughing, his black hair sticking up exactly like James and Albus's did. Mum was smiling the widest Lily had ever seen, her eyes shining even in the picture. She was beautiful too, her hair pulled up in a gracious up sweep, and a gorgeous white dress with flowing skirts. On principle, Lily didn't consider her parents particularly dashing (unlike the rest of the Wizarding World). She was, after all, a teenager. But she thought they looked wonderful in their wedding picture. It was rather sweet.

Lily's eyes scanned over the rest of the pictures- her, James and Albus as babies, each of their first year sendoffs from King's Cross, eighteen Christmases, and countless birthdays, until she got to the other picture she particularly liked to examine. In it was a red haired woman with bright eyes and a dark, messy haired man with glasses, but the couple wasn't Harry and Ginny. It was her grandmother and grandfather, James and Lily Potter. The whole Wizarding World seemed to know exactly what had happened to them- how they had died when her Dad was a year old. There was even a bloody statue in front of the church in Godric's Hollow! She could hardly forget them. But no one seemed to know much about who they really were, rather than what they did. Their three best friends were dead, two honorably and one a traitor, and Lily had never gotten up the courage to ask Professor Mcgonagall or Professor Flitwick, the only two professors at Hogwarts old enough to have taught Lily and James.

She picked up the frame, examining it. It was new, unlike the picture, obviously. It was taken before Dad was born, probably somewhere around 1979. Lily popped the photograph out from the frame and examined the back. Written in small letters, so messy she could hardly read it, was a little note.

_Glad you had fun, but I had to stand in the wind and it messed up my hair! Happy anniversary. Love, Sirius _

Funny, Lily had never noticed that before. She supposed she had never pulled the picture out of the frame simply because she would have been scolded for it. Strange, that had never stopped her before. Albus had the right idea with his speeches about possibilities. Of course, it was usually accompanied by a statistic, and by then she and James had stopped paying attention. But really, you could pretty much do anything if you thought outside the box. It was certainly more interesting, it seemed.

Sirius… The name rang a bell in her head. Where had she heard that name before? Lily glanced around the mantel, eyes settling on a picture near the back. Still clutching the photo of her grandparents, she leaned forward to examine it. She recognized her father immediately- messy black hair and a burgundy scar sticking out on his pale forehead. A man stood with his hand on her Dad's shoulder, laughing. He had shoulder length hair that might have once been neat but had been ruined by… something.

_By Azkaban, _Lily realized. This was Sirius Black. Dad's godfather. Her… great godfather? He looked much better than most people would've after twelve years in the brutal wizard prison.

The picture must have been taken in 1995 or '96, because Sirius had died that spring. Lily wasn't sure why, but it had something to do with a curtain.

She frowned, trying to dig up the memories. The Second Wizarding War was awfully complicated, with so many people as spies or under the Imperius Curse or on either side that it took years to remember. Besides, Lily had made a point of ignoring Professor Binns on the subject, not wanting to hear a familiar name.

All of the sudden, a body crashed through the fireplace, smacking into Lily and separating her grip on the picture. She fell back onto the wooden floor with Albus on top of her with a painful _smack! _while the picture flew across the room and hit the wall with a _crash! _as the glass shattered.

"Al, you prat!" Lily exclaimed, running over to examine the picture. "Couldn't you have walked through the floo like a normal person?" The glass had shattered completely, puncturing the photograph in places. Other bits of the frame covered the plank floors in a fine dust of broken glass.

"Calm down, Lilykins," Albus said, rubbing the back of his head. "The fire's supposed to glow green before I come out. And anyway, I couldn't have walked through it, seeing as Rose shoved me in. She wasn't happy about me appearing in the middle of her hair styling time. It's a lot bushier when she doesn't magic it, did you know that?"

"Yes, I did, " Lily replied through gritted teeth. "I'm a girl too, in case you hadn't noticed. She taught me how to style my hair. And you better be able to fix this. It's the only picture Dad's got of his parents."

He sat down, prying the broken frame from her fingers, which were beginning to bleed from the glass. He examined it a moment, before drawing his wand.

"You ought to fix that," Albus added, motioning to her fingers. "This'll be an easy one, I do it with my glasses all the time. Surely you can repair a measly picture frame, Lily."

Lily, having decided that her fingers weren't important enough for her attention at the moment, rolled her eyes. "No, I can't, because of something called underage magic. Not all of us are seventeen, Al."

"No. You're the only one who isn't," Albus replied, and received a swat on the arm with bloody fingers for it. "Merlin, Lily. Just joking. And look, you've stained my sleeve!"

"Can't you clean a measly sleeve, Ravenclaw?" she said, mockingly. "Seriously, Al. Dad'll kill me. Fix it!"

"He won't kill you, but fine." Albus drew his wand, and without uttering a word, he waved it over the picture frame. Even the tiniest bits of glass lifted off the floor, fusing together flawlessly, as if the frame had never shattered. Even though Lily had grown up with magic, sometimes it still amazed her. "And by the way, Lils, this won't be the only picture Dad's got of his parents. There are probably boxes downstairs."

"Right," Lily said. "I knew that."

"No you didn't. Besides, now you've hooked me in. Let's go look for them." Albus took her wrist, pulling her toward the basement stairs.

"Stupid Ravenclaw curiosity," she muttered, pulling away. She glared at him for a moment, folding her arms, before succumbing to his pout and following him down the stairs. After all, she was rather curious too.

The basement was by no means a pleasant place. It wasn't finished, so the walls and floor were made of concrete, which was horridly cold in the winter. In the summer, however, it was rather pleasant, the coolness of the underground room, if you could ignore the towering boxes of stuff stacked upon the walls. James, Lily and Albus had spent lots of rainy days downstairs, playing hide and seek or show and tell. They hadn't spent much time down here lately, preferring to spend their days with their cousins or friends rather than in a cellar.

Lily and Albus descended down the creaky wooden staircase, the dim light flickering in the room. She kept her hand gripped to the railing, careful not to fall down. It wouldn't be very fun. As she stepped down from the landing, she nearly tripped over a newer box- full of what appeared to be programs for the Ministry dinner her parents had to attend each year.

"Blimey, there's so much more rubbish in here than there was when we were little." Albus had tripped over a bag of old Quidditch uniforms for the team Lily had played on when she was eight. He winced as he got up, rubbing his ankle.

"Oh, please," Lily scoffed. "I know it doesn't hurt. Quit being stupid, Al." She cracked her knuckles and glanced around the basement, frowning. Boxes, mostly normal looking cardboard ones sat on countless shelves. They looked normal, but she knew some of them were magically enhanced, most likely so that they were bigger on the inside. "Where would those pictures be?"

Albus brushed off the back of his trousers and began to dig through a box next to him. Lily turned around to check a bag sitting on the ground near the foot of the stairs. She opened the top carefully, to make sure nothing popped out at her. (Her uncle owned a joke shop. It paid to be careful.) Inside the box, there was some sort of muggle plastic sheet in the box, with air filled bubbles attached to it. As she picked it up, the bubble popped, tickling her fingertips.

"Hey, Al. You took muggle studies. What is this stuff?"

Albus sneezed, dust covering his face. He glanced over at Lily, nose wrinkled. "Not photographs," he noted.

"Thank you, for that wonderful speech." She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I can tell it's not a photograph. But what is it?"

He dropped the box he was holding, letting stacks of old chocolate frog cards fall onto the floor. Most of them were of Dad. Albus stuck his hands in his pockets, brushed off his nose, and picked up the plastic sheet. "It's bubble wrap," he said grinning and popping another bubble.

"Bubble wrap? What's it do?" Lily frowned and folded her arms.

"Keeps muggle's fragile stuff from breaking when they mail it. But the best part is…" he stuck the bubble wrap in her face and popped a few bubbles. "That."

"Right," she replied, rolling her eyes and shoving away Al's hand. "We should keep looking for the pictures." She squeezed the picture frame from the mantel to make sure it was still there, and began to trek deeper into the basement. She ran her fingers along the shelves, briefly glancing into each box for more frames. Her fingers left a trail of clean in the dust covered boxes, like a line of footsteps in untouched snow.

She peered into a box and noticed a strange hourglass on a necklace balanced on top of an old candy tin. Deciding it was just weird jewelry, Lily looked farther up and noticed a picture frame poking out of a box just out of her reach. Even as she stepped up on the bottom shelf to try to jostle it, her hand fell an inch or so short.

"Al! Help me out here! I think I found something!" Albus turned around and watched Lily for a moment, deciding the best way to help.

He had come to the conclusion that he should try to hoist Lily up, like he used to when they were little. Later it would occur to him that he could have used magic, but he had only turned seventeen a month ago and his brain was used to figuring things out without it.

"Get down. I'll lift you up." It would also occur to Lily later that they should have used magic, but she was focused on the picture, one of the few times she was only thinking about one thing at once.

She hopped down from the shelf. Albus made a step with his hands near the ground, grunting as she stepped onto them. Lily was expecting to simply reach up and grab the box, but he had another idea. He pulled his hands up fast, with her standing on them, attempting to hoist her up to the top of the large box.

It worked to some extent. Lily was flung upwards, right in reach of the box, but the problem was that she couldn't hold on. She reached for one of the flaps, which gave way to her weight, sending her down to the box below, which held the strange necklace. She just barely managed to keep hold of the picture from the mantel before the hourglass necklace broke her fall, shattering and showering it's golden dust all around her, and the world disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the two lines at the top. Formatting is annoying.

Anyway, here's the second chapter! Sorry if Albus's is a little slow. He doesn't immediately run into any people.

Review if you can! Thanks.

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>The first thing that registered in Lily's brain was that it was really, really bright. Quite a contrast to the dark, dank basement that she had occupied a few minutes before. The sky was a deep, bright, blue, not too common for England, but not much of a change from how they day had been when she was in the basement.<p>

The second thing that registered was that the grass was making her sneeze. Trying to hold her breath, Lily began to try to sit up. Halfway through, she sneezed, covering her nose with the back of her hand and wincing as her bloody fingers brushed against the skin of her cheek.

"Bless you."

And that was when she noticed the whispers. She wasn't at home anymore, it seemed.

Flocks of children stood in a circle around her, staring with wide eyes. They muttered to each other like children did, probably spreading rumors a thousand miles an hour through the crowd. Had Lily looked a little closer, she would have noticed that all of the children had hairstyles out of a retro magazine, and had she listened a bit more, she might have caught a few "far outs" passed through the crowd. But she was too busy staring at what they were wearing.

She had seen the uniforms before though, but not in the middle of July, at her house. Each of the children were wearing Hogwarts uniforms. She caught a mix of Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors, and a few Slytherins scattered here and there. Lily rubbed her eyes, waiting to wake up at home, probably either in the basement or in her bed, having found this was all a dream.

"Lily? You okay?" Lily turned her head, frowning. The voice was familiar, but distant at the same time. It sounded a bit like James or Dad, but there was something else in it that their tones both lacked.

She spotted the boy talking to her. Her eyes narrowed as she took in his mop of messy black hair and hazel brown eyes. Though his face was the picture of concern, she could the laugh lines where the corners of his lips naturally curved upward.

So this was a prank. Either that or the strangest dream she'd ever had.

"James, this better not be a prank," she said, glaring at the boy.

"I'm offended, Lilykins. How dare you think I'd play a prank on you?" James looked hurt, his eyes widening, hands cupped around his chest in mock pain. He glanced back at one of the other boys, laughing slightly.

Who were those other boys? Lily didn't recognize them. One had sandy blond hair and a rather scruffy look to him. She noticed that two scars that looked to have once been deep gouges criss crossed over his cheeks. He looked like he was analyzing her, his eyes showed that his brain was racing a million miles away. The same look Albus had when he was trying to figure out a riddle.

The other boy had dark hair that fell to his shoulders in waves. He was handsome- Lily would give him that, but from the way he looked around the courtyard, he seemed confident, if a little arrogant. His gray eyes crinkled, showing that he laughed a lot. The top button of his dress shirt was unbuttoned, though his scarlet and gold tie was still messily knotted around his neck.

The last boy was a good deal shorter than the others. He had light blond hair, but instead of being lean or muscular he had a layer of pudge around the middle. His smile was crooked, and as the corners of his mouth perked up, Lily could see freckles stretched across his cheeks. His fingers fiddled with the edge of his sweater.

Lily shook her head. If this was a prank, she was going to kill James.

"I'm not kidding. If this is a prank, I'm going to kill you!" She glared at him, looking into his hazel eyes without fear.

Wait. James had brown eyes, not hazel ones. What was going on?

"It's not a prank, Lily. Are you okay?" He took a step toward her, motioning to her fingers, cut from the picture frame glass.

Lily scooted back, knowing full well that if this was one of James's pranks, touching him would be very bad for her. But how he had pulled off something as big as this, she didn't have a clue.

The grass stung her fingers as she set them down. _Stupid picture frame, _she thought. _Why didn't I mend my hands? _

The picture frame! She wasn't holding it anymore. Lily looked around, spotting a glint of metal on the stone courtyard a few yards away. The sandy blond haired boy seemed to follow her gaze, noticing the frame. He started toward it, but in one fluid motion, Lily jumped up and snatched the picture from the ground.

"Stop playing with me, James," she said, giving him a glare. "It's not funny anymore. And where's Al?"

"Who's Al?" asked the shorter boy. Lily ignored him.

"Lily," said the boy in front of her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" She protested, frowning at all of the children around her, watching the scene as if it was a muggle movie.

"Oh, give up, Remus. She's probably just playing with us. Bloody good prank though, Evans." The long haired boy winked in her direction, as if to say, _sorry for ruining your game. _Lily scowled at him, and then his words took effect in her brain.

Remus? Like Teddy's father? _Evans? _

For a moment there was silence, and then Lily put the pieces together.

Her grandmother's name was Lily Evans Potter. Teddy's father's name was Remus Lupin. They were the same age.

The short boy spoke up, frowning. "Yeah, it's probably a prank, guys."

"That's what I said, Peter," the long haired boy replied.

Peter. Peter Pettigrew? The spy?

"You sure you're okay, Lily?" Remus asked, ignoring the other boys. He frowned in concern.

They thought she was her grandmother. They thought she was Lily Evans. Merlin, she must have traveled to the 70s!

"Lily?" Remus asked again, still frowning.

"Yes!" Lily said, flustered. She needed to get out of here, fast. Before they found out that she wasn't Lily Evans. "I-I mean, yes, I'm… fine. I've gotta go… do something. Bye!" Lily took off in a sprint through the courtyard, scattering students in her wake. She ran inside, pausing for a moment to realize she was in Hogwarts, and that two months ago she had sat in this courtyard with her cousin Hugo and her best friend, Alice.

_Or I will in about 50 years, _Lily remembered. She ducked into a bathroom, relieved to find it was empty. She locked one of the stolls, closed the seat and sat down, pulled her knees to her chest. She balanced the picture of her knees, staring down at the nineteen or twenty year old Lily Evans Potter.

A tear leaked out of her eye, and Lily put the picture on the ground next to her, not wanting to stain it with her tears. She cradled her head in her hands and began to sob.

Where was Al? And what was she going to do?

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>Albus opened his eyes, waiting to hear a shout from Lily. She was rather feisty when she wanted to be, and her bat-bogey hexes could rival their mother's. Uncle Ron liked to say that she had a Gryffindor spirit in a Slytherin mind, which Lily seemed to accept. Of course, this was after Ron had gotten over the fact that his niece was a Slytherin.<p>

But when there was no indignant shout of "Albus!" and no flash of red hair, he was confused. He sat up, frowning at his surroundings.

He was no longer in the basement, though this small room was about as messy. Spellbooks and crumpled pieces of parchment littered the floor, laying side by side with smelly socks and the occasional pair of trousers. Whoever had occupied this room had certainly not expected anyone to visit.

Albus frowned as he took in the rest of the room. A small window looked out into a typical suburban street, complete with identical houses and neat little cars tucked into driveways. The occasional sprinkler hissed through the near-silence. He ran his fingers along the top of the sill, marveling at the strange bolts inserted into the wood, like someone had once installed prison bars over the opening. The door also had a cat-flap, he noticed.

He considered leaving the room to explore more, but decided he ought to find out where he was exactly first. Not a wizarding household, it seemed, as there was a severe lack of Quidditch posters or gossip magazines with moving pictures to be found.

A trunk stowed in the corner caught Albus's attention. Frowning, he drifted over to kneel next to it. Digging his hand into the contents, he winced as he connected with a swath of broken quills poking into his skin. He gingerly removed his hand, grabbing a cloak from the swirls of Hogwarts robes shoved inside. He checked the tag, frowning.

It read: _Property of Harry James Potter. _

Albus frowned, confused. What was his dad's old trunk doing here? It was in the basement, last he had checked. And where was he, anyway?

With a warning in the form of a flap of an owl's wings and a dignified _hoot! _and owl soared through the window and landed neatly on a stack of newspapers sitting on a desk that was equally messy as the floor. Albus jumped up, alarmed, still clutching his father's cloak. He frowned at the owl, confused.

"Hedwig?" he asked. The owl gave a hoot, bobbing her head. But what was Hedwig doing here as well? She should be at home, with Albus's family. She wasn't the first Hedwig, of course. That had been Dad's first owl, who had died when he was seventeen. The Hedwig Al was thinking of was actually Hedwig III, but everyone just called her Hedwig.

Hedwig hopped into her cage, leaving the newspapers for Albus's eyes to catch. And it did, the headline in particular.

_Third Muggle Found Dead This Month. Sirius Black Suspected. _

_Sirius Black? _Albus mused. Ironic; he and Lily had just been talking about him. But Sirius was dead. He had died in 1996. How odd.

He looked up at the date, and his eyebrows furrowed. _August 5th, 1995. _

Strange as well. The newspaper looked remarkably new to be nearly thirty years old. The flimsy paper hadn't yellowed at all, it seemed, even though Hedwig must have been landing on it for as long as she'd been here, and that seemed to be a while, considering Albus could see the marks on the desk from her cage.

Perhaps it was enchanted. Did they do that to newspapers? Making a mental note to ask someone about that, he turned to the rather dirty mirror on the wall next to the desk. Upon seeing his appearance, he stood stock still.

He still had the irritating and incurable black hair that seemed the curse of all of the Potter boys to inherit, and the sharp green eyes that he was used to, but he was no longer… himself, really.

His nose was longer, and his glasses looked older, not by use, but by style. His lips turned down more at the ends, edging toward a frown. His eyes looked tired, small dark patches under them. But most noticeably, a lightning shaped scar zigzagged down his forehead.

Albus reeled backward, tripping over a stray trainer and landing flat on his back on the floor. He ran his hands over his forehead, but could only feel smooth skin. What was going on? Why did he have his father's scar? It didn't make any sense.

_It must be a glamour, _he realized. An advanced one, considering Albus didn't feel strange, he just looked it. _But why would someone put a glamour on me? _

He frowned, considering the possibilities. It was always easier to make a list of everything that could possibly happen. An organized mind was an efficient mind, to take a line from Professor Flitwick.

He could be dreaming. It seemed a likely solution. He must have been knocked out when Lily fell on him. He was probably laying on the couch, his concerned parents and Lily, tears in her eyes, awaiting his awakening. Albus could think of no suitable reason why he would be in this strange room, glamoured to look like his father.

But he never dreamed as vivid as this. And he never thought about the fact he was dreaming during a dream. They were spontaneous and uncontrollable, yet here Albus could think rationally and move his limbs at will. Not to mention, Lily would never cry over anything as stupid as Al being knocked out for a second. Especially not when it had been his fault.

But could he move his limbs? He allowed himself the delusion that he couldn't move his left leg for a few moments before rolling his eyes and concentrating again.

It could be an elaborate prank by James. Despite all of his sibling's lamenting about how Albus was usually the ones who pulled off their pranks, James was quite gifted in magic, which had been much to Mcgonagall's disadvantage.

But there was still no reason that James would have stuck him in his fifteen year old father's body. If he had wanted to get a scream out of Albus, he would have just transfigured everything in the room into spiders.

_That's it, _Albus thought with a sigh, still sitting on the bedroom floor. _That's all I've got. _

He rested his head on the bed frame, sighing. Great. He was stuck in a strange bedroom in a strange place with no idea why. It was a perfect kidnapping, leaving him informationless and therefore nearly defenseless.

_Don't be stupid. You know what's happened. _

Albus nearly groaned. It was _that _voice. The kind that spoke up when his mind had irrationally given up and presented him with facts. Usually at the most annoying times, like when he wanted to prank someone but was reminded he had homework, or told that he oughtn't to try the Quidditch move, because it was physically impossible for someone of his muscle mass.

Coincidentally, it was also the voice who gave him his sarcastic remarks, but that was a whole other discussion. Right now it was obviously being the first one.

The thing was, it was always right. Albus did know what had happened. He just didn't want to admit it, admit that he was decades away from anyone who could possibly help him.

He had time traveled. That was the only explanation. The newspaper looked new because it was new. Perhaps it had only been printed this morning. His father's trunk and owl was here because this was his father's room. And Albus must have taken his place, his time travelling experience having taken away two years from his form and stuck a scar on his forehead. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He had watched Lily disappear in a shower of gold dust, holding a chain with a broken hourglass connected to it. That must have been the time turner. Then the golden dust had engulfed him, and he had woken up here, miles and years away from home.

Albus put his head in his hands. What had happened in 1995? He searched his brain, praying that he had happened on his father's one peaceful year in Hogwarts. No such luck, it seemed. He remembered that Voldemort had just come back. Sirius would die that spring. Umbridge. The Ministry corruption. Death Eaters.

So basically the only two years the could have been worse to be sucked into were his father's seventh and fourth years. Great luck.

Albus sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Sarcasm suddenly seemed tame for his situation. He was in a war zone, after all. He wanted to hit something, preferably Lord Voldemort. Of course, Bellatrix Lestrange would suffice. She was still alive in 1995, wasn't she?

He leaned forward and rested his temples on his knees, and settled for letting thick, hot tears trace rivers down his cheeks.

His head shot up as he heard a voice.

"Harry?"


	3. Chapter 3

Hi. I'm back. Sorry about this, I have no excuse for not updating other than that I didn't feel like it, which is really stupid. I intend to have the next chapter up on Wednesday. Enjoy!

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><p>Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter nor any of it's characters.<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>Harry was confused. One moment he had been sitting in his small room at the Dursley's, contemplating how exactly Dumbledore was going to handle Fudge's ridiculous notion that he had committed a crime worthy of being expelled, and the next he was sitting here.<p>

The room was much bigger than his own, and much brighter, a lamp shining from the ceiling. It looked like a muggle lamp, but Harry wasn't sure there was a difference.

Actually, the small room was quite an improvement to the Dursley's. Though it was messy, it seemed homely and lived in, similar to the Weasley's and in stark contrast to his aunt and uncle's. A twin bed sat on one wall, next to an open door revealing a messy closet. There was a large bay window next to the bed that Harry had not yet looked out of, and a closed wooden door that most likely led to a hallway was located on the far wall.

Inside the room, a Hogwarts trunk had been thrown open, at least revealing that he was in a wizard's room, though clearly not his own, as the robes were that of a Ravenclaw's. Harry noticed a pair of broken glasses sitting on the nightstand, next to a picture of three children waving excitedly.

Harry's eyes widened as he looked and the children more closely. Shaking his head, he pulled off his glasses and wiped them on the hem of his shirt to make sure they weren't blurry. He slid them back to the bridge of his nose and frowned at the picture.

The three children were clearly first years; no one was as excited as the new students waiting to see the magnificent castle their parents and siblings told stories about. Even if you were a muggleborn, a whole new world awaited you once you stepped on to the train.

But what caught Harry was not that they were eleven year olds, but that the boy to the left looked exactly like him. He shared Harry's black, infuriatingly messy hair that stuck up in the back. The boy's almond shaped green eyes twinkled back at him, matching his bright smile. The only thing missing was glasses and a scar, and he could've been an eleven year old Harry.

The girl next to him was grinning too, and at first Harry dismissed her for someone he hadn't met-or met anyone who looked like her. But as he examined the picture, he realized she had Hermione's bushy hair, except it was orange.

The third child, a boy with nearly white, blond hair, seemed to have accidentally photobombed the picture. It was clear that he had been walking somewhere when it was taken, which would have been normal if he had not stopped to glare at the two children in the middle of it. Even though his eyes shone with barely contained excitement under the contempt, his stare was so like Draco Malfoy's that it made Harry's blood coil.

_He must be a right git,_ he thought, nodding. Harry turned around and ran a hand through his own messy black hair, picking up the picture. He turned it over and was surprised to find a date written on the back.

_Al and Rose's first year sendoff- September 1st, 2016. _

_2016?_ Harry's eyes widened. He was no beginner to time travel- the last time he had used a time turner he had helped a falsely convicted murderer who also happened to be his godfather escape from the Ministry's clutches, but time traveling to the future?

Not to mention, he hadn't even touched a time turner since he was thirteen. What was going on?

Harry sat up and sighed. Maybe at home, once they figured out that he had disappeared, Hermione and Ron would wish they had written to them.

Pathetic compensation, really. He ran his hand through his hair again, and stood up, walking around the room. Harry stopped at the window, squinting across the backyard.

A Quidditch field stood in the middle, full sized, so the other two houses that looked out into the decent sized green must have been wizarding houses as well. Harry didn't recognize either of them. Where was he?

Turning back around, he noticed a picture hanging on the wall. This one had no frame, and Harry frowned as he looked closer. It was his look alike, sitting in the seeker spot in the picture. He didn't recognize any of the other people on the Quidditch team, but the label read "Ravenclaw Quidditch Team 2021-2022." The black haired boy in this picture, however, looked older than Harry now. He must have been a seventh year, if 2016 had been his first year.

Harry sighed and kicked the trunk angrily. Where was he? He didn't want to open the door, for fear something was out there trying to kill him.

_You're being paranoid, _he thought, frowning. Inching quietly toward the door, as if whoever would be on the other side had not heard his foot hit the polished wood trunk, he drew his wand. In one fluid move, he slammed open the door, pointing his wand down the hallway.

And right at a girl. She let out a squeak and her own wand slipped from her fingertips, landing softly on the carpet. Harry very nearly dropped his own wand, but remembered Moody's advice. If anything, he would have constant vigilance.

Studying her closely, he realized she looked very familiar. She had red hair a few shades lighter that Ginny's that feel just past her shoulders, a rounded nose, and almond shaped emerald eyes.

His eyes. What was going on?

She threw her hands up in a surrender gesture, and after a moment of confusion, Harry realized he was still threatening her with his wand.

"Merlin I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Are you okay?" she asked frantically, dipping down for a moment to pick up her wand. "I'm sorry, I don't have any idea where I am and I'm awfully confused. A moment ago I was talking to Marlene and then I was here in some Slytherin girl's room and I would really just like to go home!"

Harry took advantage of her pause for breath. "It's okay! It's okay. I'm fine. I haven't any idea where we are. And I woke up in a Ravenclaw's room, so I'm apparently just as confused as you are. Erm…" He wasn't sure how to finish.

The girl smiled in relief. "Oh thank God you don't know anything. I mean, not really, but at least I'm not alone in this. Did the person look just like you? I mean, mine was my age and everything and it was like me as a Slytherin!"

"He looked like me, yes," Harry said, frowning. "But I think mine was older. Seventh year."

"And what year are you?" she asked, crossing her arms and nodding to him.

"Fifth," he replied, relaxing. She didn't seem to want to kill him, at least. And they seemed to be in the same situation.

"Same," she replied. "And what's your name?"

He raised his eyebrows. "What's yours?"

The girl rolled her eyes, glaring at him. "For Merlin's sake, I'm not going to try to kill you. Honestly." She huffed. "I'm Lily. Lily Evans."

_Lily. _Harry paused, staring at her with wide eyes. They were his eyes.

This was his mother. His teenage mother!

He wasn't sure how to respond. Harry supposed he must have just stared at her for a moment, because she frowned again and folded her arms. "Why're you staring? It's not very polite."

"No reason," Harry said numbly. His mother! He reached out to shake her hand, probably grasping a bit too hard, but he had to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"I'm H-harry."

"Harry what?"

He paused, feeling like a deer caught in headlights. Good question. Harry what? He couldn't tell her he was a Potter, because that would tie him to James.

He settled with, "Just Harry."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but made no comment. "Anyway, have you got any idea where we are, exactly?"

Harry cleared his throat, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "There was a picture."

"A picture."

"In the room. It read 2021-2022."

Lily threw her hands up in exasperation. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Year numbers, I'd assume." Harry raised his eyebrows at her.

"Yeah, I'd assume too, Mr. Just Harry. You know, you look a lot like a boy in my class. Ever met James Potter?"

_Calm down. It's okay. She's just asking about your Dad. Who's dead. And who she'll grow up to marry. _

"No. Why?"

"Because he's a git and if you haven't met him then he hasn't infected you yet," Lily replied, and Harry was both surprised and hurt to hear the venom in her voice. She couldn't really hate him, could she?

Of course not. People who hated each other didn't fall in love. They definitely didn't get married.

"Well anyway, the picture said 2022. So I think we've, erm, time traveled," Harry said nervously rubbing the back of his head.

"Don't do that," Lily scolded. "You look like James and it's freaking me out."

"Right," Harry replied. He stuck both of his hands in his jeans pockets.

"Time travel then? Is that why you look like James? Is your last name Potter?" Lily fired the questions before Harry could catch up. Frowning, he replayed the dialogue in his mind before answering.

"Erm, maybe."

Lily opened her mouth to reply, but someone else beat her to it.

"Hey, Lils, Al! "Watcha doing?" A tall boy with hazel eyes framed by round glasses with no rims shouted, reaching the top of the staircase. He had the same mop of messy black hair that Harry did, but his form was more muscular than lanky.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, noticing their shocked expressions. "Merlin, guys. You were fine a minute ago."

Lily cleared her throat. "We're okay. Just talking."

"About what?" Unfortunately, the boy seemed intrigued. "Whose privacy am I invading? Are we planning a prank?"

"No, no, no," Lily replied quickly. "No pranks. Just talking. About dumb stuff, really. You know, school. Teachers. Things like that."

"I s'pose you haven't blown Headmistress off her rocker yet?" the boy asked, still interested. "Freddy and I tried hard enough. Mcgonagall's a tough nut to crack." He waited for a moment, apparently for them to laugh, but Harry and Lily stared at him with confused expressions.

"Are you sure you guys are okay? You seem less enthusiastic." He frowned, leaning towards them as if to get a closer look. At the last second before Harry had decided to lean backward, someone downstairs called "James!"

"That's my cue. See ya." He quirked one side of his mouth up in a half-smile and started down the steps, his feet slamming against the wood.

Lily turned to Harry. "_James?_"

He shrugged helplessly. Was this the cottage he was born in? Who were Lily and Al? The real Lily and Al. And was that James his father? Harry groaned, leaning against the wall and sliding to the floor. Why hadn't he just stayed in the room?


	4. Chapter 4

Hi! Here's this week's chapter. I should get the next one up on time, so expect a new chapter next Wednesday.

Note-In Albus's POV, I'm pretty sure I didn't copy any lines directly from the Order of the Phoenix, but if I did please send me a note so I can fix it.

Review please. Thanks for reading!

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter nor any characters or plots.<p>

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>It took nearly three solid minutes for the tears to dry up enough so that Lily could see. She took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks, promising to be done with the sobbing for now. She was Lily Luna Potter, and she'd put up with plenty of idiots before.<p>

Admittedly, however, she had never accidentally traveled back in time, nor be mistaken for her fifteen year old grandmother, but Lily knew how to deal with things, and the first step to figuring out how to get home was to bloody _stop crying. _

She stood up, and stepped out of the stall, carefully watching for anyone who recognized her. She wasn't in the mood to pretend she knew the names of her grandmother's friends.

After a quick face wash, Lily's eyes were no longer red and puffy from sobbing and she was feeling reasonably better. She sent a fake smile and nod to the people who greeted her before dashing off in the other direction. She needed to find the headmistress's office. Mcgonagall would know what to do.

Another face flew by, smiling. "'Lo, Lily!" She promptly ignored the girl, who had dark brown hair cut into a fashionable pixie, and who was holding the hand of a slightly taller boy who looked awfully familiar.

Lily smiled quickly and ducked around the corner. The Headmistress's office was near here, in fact, she could see the griffin statue, it's majestic wings raised to guard the doorway. With a breathy laugh of relief, she broke into a run.

Something soft hit her in the front, a blur of gold, scarlet and black. Lily lurched backward, scrambling away from the object, which she soon realized was a girl.

The girl was slightly taller than Lily, with brilliant blond curls and a wide smile. Her barely visible eyebrows raised and the sight of Lily, cowering in the corner. "Erm, Lily? You all right?"

Another girl came bounding around the corner, pulling yet another behind her. The two literally skidded to a stop next to the first.

One was about the height of the first girl, with light brown hair and blue eyes that crinkled as she took in Lily, with her ratty t-shirt and denim shorts, so apart from anyone else walking the halls of Hogwarts.

The second she recognized. She was the girl who had said hello in the corridor, holding the hand of the familiar looking boy. The boy, who she now realized looked a lot like Professor Longbottom from her time.

"Lily?" the girl she had seen before asked. "Are you sure you're okay? You seemed awfully flustered when I saw you in the halls."

"She's probably fine, Alice," the blue-eyed girl said with a sigh. "Right, Lily?"

Lily gulped nervously, caught off guard by their questions. She knew what she wanted to answer. That she was most certainly not alright, but she could hardly tell them that, because then she might have to mention that she wasn't supposed to be born yet. Considering the wizarding world was under attack, she had a feeling it wouldn't sit well with them.

"I-I'm fine!" she blurted. The girls turned to look at her. "I just really need to see the Head-"

"- Professor Dumbledore's at the Ministry right now. Remember, Lily? He told us at breakfast this morning. Do you need to see Madame Pomfrey?" the blonde haired girl asked, gentler than before.

"Oh…" Lily trailed off, her History of Magic lessons coming back to her. Of course. Dumbledore would be alive now, alive for another twenty-one years. That would mean Mcgonagall was still the transfiguration teacher. "I mean, of course. Sorry, slipped my mind."

"The test getting to you, Lils?" Alice's words sent a pang up Lily's spine. She gulped again. That was what James called her when he was worried. Oh, what she would give to be home right now.

_Shut up and think. You need to get to Mcgonagall. She can help. _Lily smiled and nodded. "Yeah. I'm a little freaked out, I s'pose."

"Right," Alice said, frowning at the blond-haired girl. "So we don't need to bother her anymore, because we all know how Lily gets before tests. Marlene?"

"Whatever," the blond-haired girl, (Lily supposed she was Marlene, which made sense because her grandfather had once mentioned a Marlene Mckinnon,) replied, rolling her eyes.

The third girl was still frowning at Lily. "Where'd your uniform go?"

"Prank," Lily said immediately, adopting Sirius's idea. "Erm, d'you think I could go get-"

"Who'd you get?" Marlene cut in, eyes gleaming with mischievous interest. Alice rolled her eyes, and sighed.

"Ja-Potter," she amended. Wasn't that what her grandmother had called her grandmother for a while?

At this, even Alice stopped talking and stared at her.

"Lily Marie Evans," the brown-haired girl began dramatically. "You have officially gone insane."

"I think I agree with Hestia on this one. They're going to murder you," Marlene added.

"No, Potter's infatuated with her," Alice said jokingly, sending amused glances at the other two girls. "Wouldn't hurt a hair on her head."

Apparently Lily's look of utter disgust at the thought of her and her _grandfather _showed through, because all three girls burst out laughing.

"At least your opinion hasn't changed," Marlene said, choking back a final giggle. "Not that I blame you, of course." Her voice and dropped, quieter and lower than before. Lily racked her brains. Had someone died? She wasn't even sure what year it was, really. What had happened?

She swiped away a stray hair out of her vision before beginning to talk. "Right. Potter's gross. Erm, I really need to see Mcgonagall, if you'll excuse me."

"Awfully formal," Hestia muttered. Alice sighed, and crossed her arms.

"Lily, she'll give you detention for being in the halls without your uniform. Besides, she's got first years right now."

"In other words," Marlene said. "She'll kill you even harder if you butt in right now. C'mon, we can go back to the common room. Why d'you need to talk to Mcgonagall anyway?"

"I really have to go talk to her," Lily insisted. "It's urgent."

"Why, Lily?" Hestia asked. "We've just been to transfiguration. Why didn't you tell her then?"

_Because that wasn't me. _"Something's come up. It's important!" Lily, caught up in her panic and frustration, had shouted the last word. The other three girls stopped, frowning at each other. Marlene threw her hands up.

"Fine. If you want to rack up your first detention, Lils, go ahead. But, merlin, please go put on your uniform, at least."

"Fine," Lily said, realizing they weren't going to leave her alone until she did. Anyway, they were right; Mcgonagall would be furious if she walked in on her during a class.

Sighing with relief, Marlene, Alice and Hestia started off toward the common room, Lily reluctantly trailing behind them.

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>Albus frowned, jumping from his position on the floor and walking cautiously toward the doorway. He tried the doorknob to no avail; it was locked.<p>

"Harry?" the same voice he had heard before shouted from downstairs.

"He's here, isn't he?" a feminine voice asked.

"Where else would he be?" This one was gruff and held disdain for the other two, his feelings clear in his voice.

"Dunno," the same girl replied. Al would imagine she accompanied it with a shrug, though he couldn't see her.

"Harry, it's Lupin! Answer if you're here!"

There was a moment of silence before Albus realized who exactly Lupin was, his brain sluggishly making the connection from this Lupin to his god-brother Teddy. It took another second for it to register that the Harry they were referring to was him.

"Up the stairs," he tried, but his words came out garbled, quiet, and raspy. He cleared his throat before trying again. "Up the stairs! The door's locked!"

Part of him was frantically asking what on Earth he was doing. If he would just keep his mouth shut, he could continue to figure out how to get home on his own, and be on his way without messing anything up.

But the rational part of his brain reminded him that there was no time turner in this room, and that if he stayed he was probably going to be stuck here. The only logical option was to go with Teddy's father, whom Albus was positive his father would've trusted.

Still, he drew his wand, though he didn't dare to open the lock.

Al heard quick, quiet steps on the staircase, which he assumed was wooden from the taps. He frowned when it was soon accompanied by a heavy clumping sound, though not as often as the lighter footsteps.

Someone muttered an "Alohomora," and the lock clicked open. Albus tensed, raising his wand higher. Had he really been this short at fifteen?

The door flew open and Albus found himself facing a vaguely familiar man. He had graying hair and a scarred face, but Al could see that he had the same nose as Teddy, and they both had corners of the lips that naturally sunk downward.

So this was Lupin. He sifted through his memories, racking his brains for any information. He was a werewolf. He was going to marry Nymphadora Tonks, but judging from the fact that his ring finger was bare, they weren't married yet. The two new parents were going to die on May 2nd, 1998, during the battle of Hogwarts, from Dolohov and Bellatrix.

But Albus could guess that hadn't happened yet.

"I like this one," said the same gruff voice from before, and Al realized he was still pointing his wand at Lupin." Constant vigilance, he's got." As he said this, the man stepped forward with a _clunk_ on the wooden floor. Albus recognized him immediately. With his half missing nose, abnormally large eye, and hip flask, he was obviously Mad-Eye Moody, a prominent figure in History of Magic discussions.

"Hello, Harry," Lupin said, smiling. He looked a little miserable, but Albus figured that was how he normally looked.

"Hello, Lupin." Al's voice wavered irritatingly, and he wondered for a second if he ought to tell them who he was.

"Call me Remus. I'm not your professor anymore," he said with a smile. _Professor. _Albus filed this information away in his mind, in case he needed to remember it.

"Erm." A thought has just struck Al. If he told them who he was, that he wasn't Harry Potter, but _Albus _Potter, perhaps they would help him get back to 2022. He just had to mention it, hopefully.

The rational side struck this down immediately. They'd kill him for being an imposter, or worse, take him prisoner until he told them where Harry was. This was the Order of the Phoenix he was talking about, and it was no child's play. Not to mention, he didn't have a clue where his teenage father had ended up.

"Right, lower your wand there, will you?" a pink haired lady poked her head around Lupin's shoulder. "You'll take someone's eye out."

"Bugger off, Nymphadora," Moody scoffed. The woman, who Albus realized was Teddy's mother, scowled at the older man and crossed her arms. "Remus, check he's who he says he is, will you?"

"Right," Lupin said, thinking. Albus was already panicking. If he got the question wrong, what would they do to him? "Harry, what form does your patronus take?"

"Stag," Albus replied calmly, hiding his relief. So long as he didn't have to produce one, he would be alright.

"He's the real Harry," Lupin confirmed, nodding to Moody.

"You ought to acquaint him to the rest of us, Remus," said another wizard, standing behind Nymphadora.

"Erm, right," Lupin said. "There's Moody, but you've met him-"

"-Not really, considering I was in a chest most of last year," Moody cut in, ignoring Lupin's glare.

"Nymphadora Tonks,"

"Just Tonks," Nymphadora said through gritted teeth.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt, Sturgis Podmore, Hestia Jones, Dedalus Diggle, Emmaline Vance, and Elphias Doge," Lupin finished, pointing to each witch or wizard in turn. Albus didn't bother to put names with faces, focusing instead on Tonks and Lupin.

Teddy's parents, alive and breathing. He could see the resemblance between the soon to be family, and Albus's chest ached. They would die. How many people would he have to watch die before he got home?

Kingsley stepped forward, and Albus recognized him too-the Minister of Magic. He was rather laid back and nice at home, but logically a war would make him act differently.

Contrary to the facts, Kingsley smiled easily at Al. "So, I hear you're a good flyer?"


	5. Chapter 5

Hey guys! Sorry for the wait. I've changed my pen name by the way- it's now LionessoftheEast.

Please review! Thanks

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter nor any characters<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>"Harry? Are you alright?" Harry felt strange, being comforted by his mother. Especially when she was fifteen. He knew exactly what Hermione would say.<p>

_What have you gotten yourself into this time? _What he would've given for Hermione to be here with him, not only to help with the shock of meeting his mother, but also because they might have an idea on how to get back to 1995. Something he was seriously lacking at the moment.

Lily was frowning at him in concern. He blinked, confused for a moment, and then got up from his spot on the floor. "Of course. I just had to time travel, didn't I?"

She crossed her arms, studying him. "Well, it doesn't seem we had a choice. You didn't see anything that could make you time travel, did you?"

"No," Harry said, crossly. He went to run a hand through his hair, and then remembered what Lily had said earlier. Shakily he let it drop.

"Someone's coming up the stairs," Lily said suddenly, frowning. Sure enough, Harry could hear the creaking of the floorboards, though it was softer, muffled by the white carpet that covered the upper floor.

James, who Harry thought wasn't his father but couldn't be sure, came up the stairs, turning to grin at him and Lily. However, it was far from inviting, seeming more grotesque and fake from the exaggerated wrinkles around his eyes. It was fake.

Something was going on.

"Stay quiet," Harry hissed to Lily, who frowned, but kept her lips closed. He stuck his hand into his pocket, fingering his wand, as a messy black head appeared from the staircase. It was James, though he was also holding his wand, and his posture matched that of the few glances of Aurors Harry had stolen through his years in the Wizarding World. He tensed, frowning at the older boy.

Lily drew her wand behind him, the wood scratching against her uniform skirt. He heard her muttering defense spells around the two of them, and was immediately grateful that he wasn't alone.

"Merlin, Albus. Calm down. You're not even much of a dueler, remember?" the boy from before said, smiling arrogantly and leaning casually on the banister.

Harry forced himself to stand loosely like the strange boy did, though he kept a tight grip on his wand. It would hopefully save him if his father's apparent doppelganger figured out that they weren't who he thought they were.

"Anyway, you know how I'm in Auror training?" the older boy grinned again. Harry fought the urge to burst out with questions, wondering about the profession. Being an Auror sounded like something he would want to do.

"'Course," Lily said, before Harry could reply. He swore the other boy furrowed his eyebrows at this, but he couldn't be sure.

"Right," he continued. "So my big exam's on your birthday, Lils. Wanna remind me the week before?"

"Sure," she replied, smiling a little. "I'll, erm, check on it."

Harry noticed her constant stream of words disappeared when she was lying. He kept a chuckle to himself, not wanting the boy in front of them to see it.

"So what day are you reminding me about?"

"Your exam, which is on my birthday," Lily parroted. Simple enough to remember.

"And what day's your birthday on?" he frowned, staring at her with his hazel eyes. They looked familiar, but Harry couldn't place them.

"January 30th," she replied immediately. Harry repeated the words in his head, wanting to remember them. No one had ever told him his mum's birthday.

He tensed, glaring at them. Harry heard Lily gulp, like she knew she had said something wrong. This boy was certainly not a trusting person; he seemed more likely to stun them and be done with it than hear them out. Besides, he wasn't exactly sure what there was to hear. For Harry knew, this man could be working for Voldemort.

Harry saw his hand move a second before it did, right to his back pocket, where an ebony wand stuck out. He reached desperately for his own wand, managing to draw it just as the boy slashed a stun at him. Harry dodged, slightly elated at the thought that he had avoided a trained Auror, and put a quick shield around Lily, who had just drawn her own wand. He turned to give her a reassuring smile, though how reassuring, he couldn't sure, because he had just met her a moment ago and had refused to give up his last name.

As he turned, the other boy took advantage and sent a stun right at his back. Harry realized his mistake as he whirled around and came face to face with a blast of red light.

The world went black before he hit the floor.

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><p>Lily watched as Harry crumpled to the carpet, his wand flying out of his hand and smacking against one of the posts of the railing. She let herself let out a small groan before strengthening the shield spell around her. Why had he cast it, anyway? He couldn't have known her, though the shock in his eyes when she told him her name begged to differ. He had also seemed rather surprised when she mentioned James Potter, and almost hurt. Maybe he was a relative. They looked awfully alike.<p>

As did this boy, who had the apparently legendary Potter hair, though his eyes were the wrong color. But every move he made, Lily was strongly reminding of the bully.

The James look alike panted, staring at Harry triumphantly. The words of a charm common in the Hogwarts hallways popped into her mind, and without opening her mouth, she thought firmly, _Levicorpus! _

The boy gave a yelp as his ankle was lifted in the air, brushing the ceiling. Lily knew it wasn't to last, as most students knew the counter-curse, but it would buy her some time as he sorted out his panic enough to perform the silent incantation.

She had underestimated him, as he didn't even try to right himself before flicking a set of ropes around Lily, binding her arms to her sides and her knees together. With a shriek, Lily feel to the carpet next to Harry.

Another flick of the boy's wand, and a cloth tied itself around Lily's mouth, gagging her. She continued to mumble, crying out for help, refusing to believe that the other people who must be in this house would side with the strange boy.

"Mum!" the look alike called, trashing within the spell's grip. "Mum! Come up here!"

Lily felt relief as she heard steps on the staircase. Surely this woman, whoever she was, would be more level headed than the boy.

As the woman came to the top of the staircase, Lily could see the family resemblance to the Lily in the Slytherin robes, whose room she had woke up in. They had the same hair color, and the same nose and dash of freckles across their noses. The woman put her hands on her hips, glaring at the boy hanging from the ceiling.

"For Merlin's sake, James! I know you're training to be an Auror, but do you really have to practice on your siblings?" The woman made to untie Lily, who had started on the word "James", but stopped when James called out.

"No! Don't! _That's not Lily!_"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Lily cried, hoping she sounded offended. "Who else would I be?"

"I dunno, who are you?"

The woman sighed. "James, stop being ridiculous. That's your sister."

He groaned. "No, mum, I'm serious! She said her birthday was January 30th! Lily's birthday wasn't January 30th!"

She turned to look at Lily, frowning. There was suspicion in the woman's eyes, and Lily knew she was done for. Her lying skills were rubbish.

"Please," she begged, deciding to drop the pretense. "I'm sorry. I just woke up here, in a Slytherin girl's room, and I haven't any idea where I am, and I really just want to go home and take my transfiguration test, which is really odd for me because I hate transfiguration. And I was even having a good day, but I just had to apparently _travel in time, _and got into this mess!"

The boy stopped thrashing against Lily's spell, letting his shoulders fall, staring at her in surprise. The woman's eyes widened, and her mind seemed to be moving at a million miles an hour.

"Time travel?" James said, gaping at her. "_Time travel? _What'd you do with my sister?"

"I don't know," Lily said, wishing she could wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks. Unfortunately, ropes still bit into her wrists, keeping her restrained. "I haven't a clue where she is. Please. You have to believe me."

The woman studied her closely. Lily gulped. _Nothing to fear, _she reminded herself. _She won't hurt you. _

With a flick of her wand, James was righted, sitting on the floor, wincing and rubbing his ankle. "Merlin, mum! That hurt."

"Sorry, James." She turned back to Lily, frowning at her again. "Who's the boy?"

Lily glanced at Harry, still sprawled on the ground. "Er, I dunno. He said his name was Harry. Wouldn't tell me his last name. I'm Lily Evans, by the way. I didn't tell you that, did I?"

"Harry?" James said in surprise. "Lily? Mum are they-"

"I don't know, James. Let me figure it out. _Ennervate!_"

Harry's eyes snapped open. He sat up abruptly, grabbing his wand and immediately pointing it at the woman. Lily decided he must play Quidditch. His reflexes could have rivaled Potter's.

"What's going on?" he demanded. James stood up, pointing his wand at Harry.

"Hey! Watch it!" he shouted, glaring at the boy on the floor.

"Stop it, both of you!" the woman demanded, fending off her son. She studied Harry, but with less harshness than she had Lily, and more familiarity.

"Harry?" she asked. "That is you, isn't it?"

"Who are you?" he demanded again. "How do you know who I am?"

"I"m your best friend's little sister."

Harry's eyes widened. Lily frowned, confused. His best friend's little sister? But she looked too young to be that, if she was born in the sixties.

"_Ginny?_" he exclaimed. "Ginny, what?"

With a flick of her wand, Ginny removed the bonds from Lily's wrists and knees. She stood up, gratefully shaking out her hands. "Alright, someone better tell me what on Earth is going on!" she shouted, frowning at all three people in turn, who seemed to have a much better of knowledge about who and where they were than she did.

"How about we go downstairs and discuss this over lemonade?" Ginny asked, smiling more pleasantly now. Lily was confused. Weren't they still intruders?

"Ginny-" Harry started.

"Lemonade first."

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><p>The kitchen was rather large, Lily had decided. Counter covered the back wall and half of the sides, with a table in the middle. Three doors led out of it, one to a yard that looked out onto two other houses and a Quidditch field, another back to the living room, which also contained the staircase, and the last door on the back wall that led to a staircase that descended into darkness as far as she could see.<p>

With a casual flick of her wand, Ginny had sent a pitcher of lemonade flying onto the table, filling up each of their glasses to the brim in one fluid movement. The pitcher set itself down neatly back on the counter, leaving both Lily and Harry to stare at it, impressed.

James sat down next to his mother, leaning on his elbows and staring at them with his eyes just above the top of the table.

Ginny sat down, and smiled at all three of them. "I'd presume you've got a lot of questions."

"Where are we?" Harry fired immediately, beating Lily to the chase. She snapped her mouth shut, watching the boy.

"Godric's Hollow," Ginny replied. "The other houses you can see through the doors are Angelina and Fred's, and Neville and Hannah's."

"Neville and Hannah Abbott?" Harry asked, eyes widening. Lily guessed he knew them, whenever he was from. She had realized that he couldn't possibly be from her time, considering she knew everyone in the fifth year at Hogwarts, yet she didn't know him.

Ginny nodded, shrugging as if she wasn't entirely sure how it had happened either.

"Who are you?" Lily asked, before Harry could continue.

"Ginny. Well, my maiden name's Weasley."

Lily nodded. she had heard of the Weasleys before.

"Maiden name?" Harry asked. James snickered a little, glancing at his mother.

Ginny smiled drily. "I'll explain later."

"Who are you?" Lily asked, glancing at Harry. He ran his hands through his messy black hair, so similar to Potter's.

"Erm, well, my name's Harry Potter," he said slowly, glancing at her. She betrayed no emotion, as she had figured anyway. "I was born in 1980," he added as an afterthought.

That made sense. It was perfectly plausible for Ginny to be his friend's little sister then.

"Sufficient?" James said, glancing between Harry and Lily. "Information, I mean. Done asking questions?"

"No," both Lily and Harry said, but he was already standing up, moving toward the back door. "I'll go get your book out of the basement, hmm, mum? I dont' think it's good to share any more information until Dad's home." And with that, he shut the wooden door behind him. His footsteps made creaking sounds on the stars.

"He's probably right," Ginny said. For a moment, they all sat in silence. Lily picked at the hem of her tie. Harry ruffled his hair again, and she suppressed the urge to tell him off for it.

James came running up the stairs much earlier that she expected. He slammed the door open, no book in his hands, and Lily was about to ask exactly what he was doing when he began to talk between deep breaths.

"Broken hourglass-golden dust-fingerprints on the boxes-one's tipped over!"

"James!" Ginny said. "Calm down."

He stood silently for a moment, catching his breath, before continuing. "There's a broken hourglass in the basement, surrounded by golden dust. Isn't that a time turner, mum?"

Ginny, much to Lily's surprise, swore loudly. "I think I know where Lily and Albus have gone," she said.


	6. Chapter 6

I'm really sorry for the wait on this one. It would've been up last night, but Fanfiction was being wonky and irritating.

So some things to know about this chapter-

Kobe is pronounced Kobie, and

_Prynhawn_ means afternoon in Welsh

I'll let you figure out what _nunc viator_ means for yourself :)

I also apologize if the fonts or formatting come out weird.

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters and plots from the book, including the note Lupin gives to Albus.<p>

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>Even though it was technically the summer, England, being England, was damp and cold. The air tore at the skin of Albus's face, making him wince and shut his eyes for a few moments at a time. He was afraid that he wasn't living up to his father's reputation for flying, as every time he adjusted his broom, he accounted for four inches more than he had to. He had forgotten how annoying being fifteen was.<p>

Moody, who Al had managed to remember by one line, "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" seemed to be as paranoid as his father made him out to be. He took them up into another cloud, justifying it with "Getting any followers off our tail!" By that point, Albus's glasses had frozen over, and his hands were beginning to stick to the broom handle from freezing mist. Not to mention, he couldn't exactly feel his toes.

"For Godric's sake, Mad-Eye!" Tonks finally shouted. "We'll be halfway to Iceland if you don't bloody quit taking detours."

"When we're attacked, you'll wish we had!" Moody replied, banking left and aiming downwards.

"Iceland's actually very green. It's a misnomer," Albus said, before he could stop himself. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he winced as his broom threw him a bit. He supposed if James was in his place, there wouldn't have been a doubt that he was Harry. Albus wasn't so sure he was pulling it off, what with the hard flying and unfamiliar broom.

"Odd, Harry," Lupin said, pulling up next to Al. "I didn't think you paid attention to things like that."

"Erm, I dunno," he replied, too quickly to seem entirely truthful. "It's erm, a bit boring down in…" Whose house was it? "The, erm, house."

Lupin shrugged before widening his eyes and taking a deep dive. Albus followed, glad that maneuver was simple enough on an old broom.

They landed in a small park in what Al figured to be London. The park could hardly be called a green, seeing as the grass was brown and brittle under his sneakers. Surrounding it were several rows of modest brick townhouses, with small yards guarded by wrought iron fences. Albus caught a bit of an infomercial through one of the windows before Moody prodded him in the shoulder-blade.

"Quit staring, boy," he said in his gravelly voice. Gulping, Al followed Lupin and Hestia Jones to one of the townhouses.

As the number of the townhouse came into sight, Albus realized exactly where he was. Number 12, Gimmauld Place… This was his father's godfather's house.

"Slow down there, Harry," Tonks said, smiling. "We're not going into any of those houses."

They weren't? But why else would they be here?

"Read this, but don't speak," Lupin said, handing him a small note.

The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number 12, Grimmauld Place.

What was going on? Albus racked his brain for answers, frowning at the piece of paper. He looked up at Lupin in confusion.

He was smirking. "Look," he said, pointing at number 12.

For a moment Al stared at the unremarkable townhouse, though it was a good deal shabbier than those around it, and then something clicked. Hadn't his father said it had once been under the Fidelius charm? And if so, since he had been to the house, he would be able to see it.

But Lupin and the rest of the Order didn't know that. Realizing a split second later that he ought to hope he was a good actor, Albus feigned amazement, staring at the building as if it was… doing whatever charmed buildings do when you're given clearance by the Secret-Keeper.

"We go inside that one," Tonks said, stepping forward. The rest of the group followed, Albus along with them.

Moody knocked on the thick looking wooden door with the odd brass knocker. Al shivered, the house smelled like dark magic, something that he often smelled when hanging out with Teddy in his office at the Misuse of Magic Department of the Ministry. He dealt with tampered charms.

Every time Albus breathed in, the odd smell caught a hitch in his throat, making a clicking sound that he was pretty sure only he could hear.

The hall was dark and dingy, but he had expected that of a house that smelled like dark magic. What he wasn't prepared for were the decapitated heads of house elves mounted on the walls, nor the old portraits that had faded so much only the blackened silhouettes of their residents were still visible.

"Harry!" A familiar voice exclaimed. Al recognized a younger version of his Gran, her red hair graying but still vibrant. Her eyes shone with the same love she showed in 2022, which surprised him for a moment, as Molly Weasley had only known Harry for a few years now.

Albus stopped himself before a "Gran!" could slip out, and instead settled for, "Mrs. Weasley!" She smiled, and he knew he hadn't messed up horribly yet.

"Oh, Harry, it's so good to see you!" She smiled at him, motioning to the staircase. "Hermione and Ron are just upstairs. On you go, then."

"But what's-" Al started.

"Order meeting. Members only," Gran said, trying to look remorseful. Albus doubted it; she was probably glad that he didn't have the opportunity to get himself killed.

Though, knowing his Dad, he had found some way to almost die regardless.

Reluctantly, Albus walked slowly up the stairs, preparing himself to meet the Weasleys and his aunt.

Don't call her Aunt. Don't mention an uncle. And Salazar's saddlebags, don't wig out about Uncle Fred!

Salazar's saddlebags. James would be ashamed.

The moment he stepped into the small room, Albus was ambushed by a curly, brown-haired mass of person who threw her arms around his neck. Albus held his breath, engulfed by the witch's bushy brown hair, before realizing that it was merely his fifteen year old aunt and that he oughtn't to draw his wand. Awkwardly he strung his arms around her waist.

"Oh, Harry, we're so glad you're here! We're sorry we couldn't right, Dumbledore wouldn't let us, we promise!"

"Sheesh, Hermione, give the guy a break." A voice Al recognized as his Uncle Ron's said. Albus could hear the smile behind the boy's words. For a moment he felt a sense of elation; he was no longer alone with strangers who, for all he knew of 1995, could be Death Eaters in disguise, but with people his father had trusted completely. Unfortunately, the rational side of his mind had to step in and remind his that Voldemort was still alive and that this year was going to be rubbish for him if he couldn't get home.

"Hello t'you too," Al managed, smiling at his aunt and uncle. They smiled back, Ron's grin slightly crooked and Hermione's grin slightly over-enthusiastic.

"We thought you were going to kill us, the way you sent Hedwig and told her not leave without a full reply. Ron's got the scars-see?" Hermione had seized Ron's right index finger, pulling it up to Albus. It was covered in small scars the shape of an owl's beak.

He winced, ducking backward. "Yes, erm, I'm uh, sorry about that." Why had his Dad told Hedwig to attack his best friends? Albus, who had never been a particularly good actor, simply nodded wordlessly to Hermione and hoped he looked convincing.

Lily would be so much better than him at this. Or even James, who would fit confidently into his apparent new personality. Acting was hard.

Just as Albus was reaching up to run his twitching fingers through his hair, a loud crack! engulfed the room.

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>It took all of Lily's willpower not to turn down toward the dungeons when Marlene suggested they go to the common room. She had taken two steps in the wrong direction before noticing the confused looks Alice and Hestia were sending here. Shaking her head, she cursed the fact that Lily had to be a Gryffindor. Being Slytherin would make everything so much simpler.<p>

Or would it? Hadn't the Slytherins actually been the bad guys during the 70s?

Running a hand through her hair, (a habit she had picked up from her oldest brother) Lily checked to make sure she was in step with Marlene, just in case. She examined the faces of the other students as they passed by, some faces bringing up fuzzy memories of her school friends, while others dredged up nothing from the deepest pits of her brain.

They were the ones that worried her. At least if she recognized students from the faces of her own peers, she would know they survived.

"You sure you're okay, Lily?" Alice asked, nudging her gently on the elbow. Alice seemed like the gentlest of the three girls Lily had met so far, quiet and bookish. Marlene exuded the air of the headstrong and daring Gryffindor. Though, not all students fit into their house stereotypes. Anyone who had met her Aunt Hermione could tell you that.

"Fine," she replied. Lily pressed her sweaty palms into her shorts, desperately wishing that Dumbledore would return soon. She had no idea how to get home.

The four girls made their way up the staircase, stopping at the fat lady. Lily expected the typical glare from the painting, who was particularly adverse to Slytherins, but to her surprise, the painted woman gave her a warm smile.

"Nice afternoon, girls. Password, if you will?"

"Nunc viator," Hestia provided, stepping through the portrait hole.

Alice murmured a quiet, "Nice afternoon as well," following the other two girls. Lily entered last.

The common room was nearly exactly as she remembered, though lacking the memorial pictures for the Gryffindors who had perished in the Battle of Hogwarts. Despite that it was late May and nearing summer, the fire crackled pleasantly in the hearth, giving off virtually no heat. Rugs covered the floor, the same patterns that lurked in Lily's memory from the many times she had entered with James.

Speaking of Jameses, the one who currently resided in 1975 hopped over the back of the antique couch and enveloped Lily in a hug before she could open her mouth.

"Merlin, Lily! Don't do that! Gave me quite a fright, you did."

Lily froze, her joints locking and her throat closing up momentarily. It's alright. You're alright. Just hugging your dead grandfather. No big deal.

She gritted her teeth. "Potter, get off of me. Nice to see that you're worried over a bloody prank." The words physically hurt her tongue to say, her prior ferocity in the courtyard worn off with her panic. She shouldn't be yelling at her own grandfather, not the man who had died for her father. It didn't feel right.

"Called it!" Sirius shouted from behind the couch, the top of his dark haired head peeking out above the upholstery. James sent him a ferocious glare, and Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. "Right. Sorry, mate."

"Hey, what's that?" James asked, momentarily getting a grip on the edge of the photograph Lily still carried. She had forgotten about it on the walk up, absentmindedly twisting in her nervous hands. None of the girls had asked.

"Is it your business?" The words came easier this time, but they still sent a pang to both her head and her heart. It's not right.

But what was she supposed to do? Should she feel happy or sad? The emotions muddled up in her brain made the world twist and turn in front of her eyes. She desperately wished for the panic and adrenaline of an unexpected time travel to overtake her again. Preferably, she would end back at home.

Shaking her head the slightest bit, Lily wrenched the photograph from James's grip. Luckily he hadn't gotten a chance to look at it. Her sight cleared, and she noticed Hestia, Marlene, and Alice glaring at the two boys.

"C'mon, Lily," Hestia said. Alice sent a disappointed look toward James. Marlene sent a harsh glare.

Lily followed them up the steps, glancing backward once at the boys. Sirius caught her gaze, smirked and raised his eyebrows. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes before turning back to the girl's dormitories.

The dorm nearly mirrored her own, with rich, dark wooden floors and hangings with witch's hats and wands on them. However, instead of a window with green light spilling in from the underwater view of the lake, Lily caught a glance of the Quidditch field through the glass. The hangings were scarlet and gold instead of emerald and silver, and the whole room in general was brighter.

She wasn't sure if it was nicer than her own dormitory or not. The lake view had always been comforting, and the brief glimpses of mermen had fascinated her first year self.

Another girl was sprawled out on the bed nearest to the door, the hangings flipped above the canopy. Her eyes scanned a note written in expensive looking stationary, her honey blond hair falling into her eyes.

"'Lo, Mary," Hestia greeted, flopping down on her own bed.

"Prynhawn," Mary replied back. Lily, still standing in the doorway, frowned. What language was that?

"You're speaking Welsh again, Mary," Marlene said with a roll of her eyes.

"Right. Sorry, I was writing a letter to my mam."

"That what you're reading?" Alice asked, kicking off one of her shoes. "That paper looks awfully expensive for a weekly letter."

"No," she said with a sigh. "Seems Kobe Boot's asked me out, with this nice little letter and all." The four other girls turned to look at Lily, who had gravitated over to what she assumed was Lily Evans's bed, judging from the pictures on the nightstand.

"What?" Lily asked, frowning at her new dorm-mates.

"Kobe Boot?" Mary inquired. "You don't mind he's asked me out?"

Kobe Boot? There was a Jennifer Boot in her history of magic class. Must be an ancestor. "No. Should I?"

Marlene sat up straight, fixing Lily with a stare. "Should you? He's only been the boy you've been waiting to ask you out since third year!"

My grandmother liked a boy named Kobe Boot? Really? She cleared her throat. No dating during her time here, she decided immediately. The fact that all of these people would be in their sixties during her time was fresh on her mind. "Well, I don't mind." Lily didn't address anyone, but Mary just shrugged and glanced back at the note.

"I think I'll say yes."

Lily turned her attention back to her grandmother's nightstand. Two main pictures took up the space of the nightstand, along with an alarm clock she assumed ran on magic, seeing as it had no plug.

The first picture she examined was a muggle one, the children in the photo's smiles frozen on their faces. One was obviously Lily Evans, she could see the same emerald eyes that she, her father, and Albus possessed. Her grandmother had dimples, carving small holes in her freckle covered cheeks. Her bright red hair blew in the wind behind her, seemingly about shoulder length. The second girl in the photo was blond, her long neck making her about two inches taller than Lily. Her blue eyes looked less trustful than the bright, innocent girl next to her.

It was her father's Aunt Petunia, Lily realized. She turned to the next photo, a picture of what she supposed was her great-grandparents. Mr. Evans had bright red hair just like his youngest daughter, though Petunia had inherited his eyes. Laugh lines circled around the corners of his mouth. Overall, he looked rather pleasant, and Lily would have liked to meet him.

Maybe you will. She shook the thought off. Going to her grandmother's house for the summer was something she definitely wasn't comfortable doing. Hogwarts 1975 was bad enough.

Mrs. Evans had blond hair, like Petunia, and the stunning emerald eyes that Lily saw when she looked into the mirror. Her smile looked a bit more strained than her husbands, and for a moment Lily wondered why. Still, they both looked normal and happy.

Examining the rest of the stand, Lily opened the first drawer, finding various broken quills and returned homework assignments.(All of them O's, of course.) The second drawer held neatly organized lip balm and one tube of mascara, which Lily decided immediately she wasn't going to use. She hated makeup, unless she needed it to get something done. It had been extremely helpful when two seventh year Ravenclaw boys had thought she had stolen their remembrall, but other than that, she didn't see much use.

The third drawer held the jackpot. It was empty except for one thin notebook and a discarded picture. Turning it over, she saw a Lily Evans that looked about her age, smiling next to a Slytherin boy with a hooked nose and greasy hair about the length of Sirius's. He was smiling hesitantly, though he kept glancing behind him at the corridor.

Severus Snape, Lily realized. The man her brother was named after. Putting the picture back, along with the frame she had brought with her, she picked up the small notebook.

Penciled in neat handwriting, read. Property of Lily Marie Evans.

A diary! If Lily was going to survive here, though she was still holding on to the hope that Dumbledore could send her home, she would need to know a bit more about her grandmother.

Shutting out the other girl's hushed conversations, Lily opened the notebook and began to read.


	7. Chapter 7

Sorry for the long wait, but here's the next chapter! I apologize if it's a little confusing, having two versions of the same character is a little hard to write.

Enjoy!

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><p>Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters.<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>"How?" Harry and James demanded at the exact same time. They exchanged glances, and Lily almost wanted to laugh. The two boys had the same expressions of shock and confusion, down to the left eyebrow that was slightly quirked upwards.<p>

"You know," Harry started, "from a bloody broken time turner and time sand, exactly where your children have gone? Do mothers have like, an instinct for that stuff?"

Ginny laughed, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. Lily wondered exactly where she thought the two teenagers were. It didn't seem to be a very nice place, not from her reaction.

"Blimey, Harry, you sound like Ron. And no, unless I just haven't inherited it. I don't know where they are exactly either. Just… A very good guess." She shook her head, still slightly amused, but Lily still noticed the tenseness as she moved, like the woman was nervous about something.

_Not that she hasn't got any reason to be_, Lily scolded herself. _Honestly, she's just found out that her son and daughter are missing._

In fact, Ginny seemed to be handling the situation extremely well.

"Where d'you think they are, then?" she asked, frowning. Harry turned to Ginny as well, while James slumped lower against the door frame he leaned against and ducked his head so his messy black bangs covered his eyes.

It reminded Lily so much of her James, she almost wanted to be sick.

Ginny ran her hand through her own hair, which made Lily flinch. Honestly, did they all do that? "Neither of you had a time turner on you when you, erm, ended up here, yes?"

"I didn't," Lily replied, folding her arms as well.

Harry sighed. "No. I was at the Dursley's."

"Dursleys?" Lily echoed. "Why does that sound familiar?" She racked her brains, searching through long forgotten memories. It had something to do with her sister didn't it? But all she could come up with was a whale… What did a whale have to do with Petunia?

"Should it sound familiar?" he replied, staring at her with an odd expression on his face. It seemed to be a mix between hatred and longing. She wasn't sure which were directed at her.

"Well, Lily and Albus both disappeared, and you both disappeared- at the same time, I assume? Can you apply that to time travel? Anyway, since they broke the time turner, and neither of you did, perhaps you switched places? Don't ask me to explain how, that's hardly my medium, but it's possible, isn't it?"

"Sounds right," James admitted, nodding. "So our Lily's in some year in the seventies-"

"1975," Lily interjected.

"Right, and Albus is in... what, 1995?"

"S'pose," Ginny replied, shrugging. "Makes as much sense as any. We'll wait for Harry to come back, he'll have an idea."

"Me?" Harry said in surprise. "What d'you mean-"

"I'm home!" sounded from the hallway, reverberating through the house. Both Lily and Harry flinched a bit, recognizing the voice. Ginny grinned a little and stood up, leaving the kitchen for what Lily guessed was the front door. Harry glanced at her with a confused look on his face, which she assumed was from the fact that apparently another Harry was talking to Ginny at that moment.

She sent him a shrug and look that she hoped seemed reassuring, but he probably didn't know her well enough to tell.

The three of them in the kitchen could hear voices sounding from the hallway. James pushed himself off the door frame to go greet "Harry."

Lily fingered the edge of her necktie, tracing over the golden stripes. Harry sat up straight next to her, leaning towards the open doorway to see if he could eavesdrop. Neither of them caught much of the conversation, just snippets of speech.

"Dad!"

"-You'll be so surprised…"

"-We're not sure."

"-No idea. Just appeared!"

"-Broken time turner."

"-Two children, yes. They'll look familiar, if you know what I mean."

"They're talking about us," Harry noted, staring at her with his unnerving green eyes. Where had she seen those before?

Shaking her head, Lily sighed. "Well, I would go closer to listen in, but that would be rather rude, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "Stay here then." Standing up, he tiptoed to the doorway, before slipping out into the hall.

Lily heaved a sigh, sitting back in her chair and crossing her legs. Boys. Couldn't they just follow the rules for once?

Though, no one had explicitly stated that they had to stay here. Sure, there was a strange feeling in the air that this room was safer than all of the others, but feelings were wrong all the time. Weren't they?

Muttering under her breath about Potters, she slipped out into the hallway, spotting Harry next to a window. The blinds were open, showing a familiar scene to Lily. It appeared Ginny and James and whoever else lived in the house were situated in the middle of a muggle neighborhood. She could spot cars in cracked driveways, grills in backyards, the grass yellowing in the heat, and scribbled games of hopscotch on the deserted road. Grinning a little, she turned to Harry.

"Nice, isn't it?" she asked. "Normal. Sometimes, when the Slytherins get really bad, I wish I could just go home. Of course, I can't, not really, because it's not any safer there or anything-"

"Doesn't matter what happens at Hogwarts, it's better than home," Harry interrupted. He ran another hand through his hair, and Lily fought to keep her own hanging at her sides. She frowned, studying him for a moment.

Right, of course. He was a Potter, a boy who had probably grown up with magic. Why would he be nostalgic about a boring muggle neighborhood?

Lily couldn't be sure why anywhere was better than his home, however. She was still trying to puzzle that one out.

A flash of bright light burst out from one of the bushes lining the side yard of the house, temporarily blinding Lily. She blinked her eyes and glanced back at the bush.

Nothing. Turning to Harry, she tapped him on the shoulder. "Did you see that?"

"What?" Apparently not. With a shrug, Lily turned her attention back to the conversation.

"They're in the kitchen, yeah," Ginny was saying. Footsteps sounded from the end of the hall, and Lily made to go back into the kitchen when she noticed Harry was frozen in his place. Ginny, James, and the other Harry stood, watching the two carefully.

Lily suppressed a gasp as she looked at the other Harry. He wasn't as lanky or skinny, but he had the tell-tale messy black hair of all Potters, even the same lightning shaped scar on his forehead. His emerald green eyes reminded her of the something lurking at the back of her brain the same way the Harry standing next to her did.

His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he seemed to be about to grin, though he wasn't sure if that was acceptable yet.

"H-hello," Lily stammered. The older Harry blinked at her, frowning a bit, before turning to the younger Harry.

"You're me," the younger Harry said, frowning.

"Appears so," older Harry replied, grinning now. "I'd imagine you'd be quite surprised."

Harry gulped, still staring at his older self. "You don't seem so surprised."

"Oh, I've just sent Merlin back to his time. It's been happening a lot lately, actually. The Ministry's starting to get worried." Harry smiled, and Lily was strongly reminded of Dumbledore.

"You aren't worried?" younger Harry asked.

"I'm good at hiding it."

Younger Harry frowned, his gaze shifting around the room. Lily caught him glancing at a photograph hanging on the wall.

"Wait," he said, slowly, "you don't live here, do you?"

"Wha- yeah, I live here," older Harry replied, his hands still in his pockets.

"But Ginny lives here too."

Lily stifled a giggle, glancing at younger Harry. "You mean you haven't figured it out yet?"

"What?"

Ginny smiled, amused, and James started to laugh, watching Harry's reaction. Older Harry gave him a grin that said you'll get it soon enough.

"I live here and so does Ginny," he said, slowly.

Younger Harry gulped and glanced at Lily, who by then had broken down in snickers. "Right."

"Don't worry, you'll get used to the idea."

Ginny glanced at older Harry. "He'd better. It only took you five years."

"I was an idiot about relationships."

"You're still an idiot about relationships."

Older Harry let out a laugh. "Yeah, don't remind me. Anyway, you'd be Lily?" He asked, nodding at the redhead.

"Yeah," she replied, smiling and waving. "Erm, I dunno why I'm here. I mean, I s'pose it was an accident, the whole time travel thing, but you all seem to be related all, and I'm not related to any of you all… Why're you looking at me like that?"

He had been watching her with an amused expression, running hand through his hair as his eyes twinkled. "Ginny, what have you told them?"

"Not much," Ginny admitted.

Lily felt like she was in the same boat younger Harry had been just a few minutes before. "Will someone please tell me what we're talking about? Because I'm pretty sure I'm not related to any of you."

Older Harry looked from Ginny to James and younger Harry. "You mean you haven't even mentioned it to her?"

"Mentioned what?" Lily demanded, crossing her arms. "If you won't tell me, I'll figure it out myself. And I'm warning you, I'm not exactly easy on what I look into. So if you find anything broken around here it was probably me." She glared at each of the other four occupants of the hallway in turn, waiting for them to respond.

"Go on, Harry," Ginny said, raising her eyebrows and smiling at her husband. For a moment Lily felt uncomfortable, thinking that the sentence gave off tension, but she realized that the red haired woman was smiling playfully.

"Well," older Harry started, running his hand through his hair, making Lily inconspicuously clench her fists. "Erm, you… Look, there's a boy in your year named James, yes?"

"What's this got to do with him?" she asked, frowning. Younger Harry flinched in the corner of her eyesight.

"Yeah, well, he likes you doesn't he?" he continued. Lily frowned, turning her glare up to full blast and focusing it right into the dark haired man's eyes.

"He's faking it. Most definitely. And I don't like him anyway. He's an arrogant prat." Younger Harry seemed to be shaking now, staring at her, and she wasn't sure why.

"Well, I think you just might change your opinion later on," older Harry said, watching her carefully. "See, you're… Well… Oh, blimey, forget this. You're sort of my mother."

You could hear a pin drop in the hallway, a surprise for the Potter household.

"What!" Lily shrieked, her voice echoing off the wooden walls. She cleared her throat. "How do I ever end up _liking_ him?"

"Dunno," he replied. "But it'll happen."

"Wait," younger Harry said, "why are you telling us about our futures? Couldn't we, ruin the timeline or something?"

Ginny sighed, and glanced at her husband. "Well, we've got memory charms. And, it sort of started coming out after you told me who you were. I'm a bloody reporter here, I don't usually keep secrets. Not to mention that didn't go so well the last time."

Both Harrys flinched, and Lily glanced at them confused. "What?"

"Later," older Harry said, smiling a little. "Ginny's right, the Ministry's quite good at memory charms. And I did say I'd just sent back Merlin. Plus… I know you," he pointed at his younger self, "can't keep from exploring things for the life of you. No point, really."

"You just said too much and made up excuse, didn't you," younger Harry said calmly.

Lily giggled a little, glancing at the teenager, and Ginny and James both let out a full on laugh. Older Harry spluttered a bit before responding.

"Funny how I'm not obtuse about that!"

Ginny heaved another breathless laugh. "You were obtuse about some things and smart about others."

"Hey!" younger Harry protested. "I'm right here!"

Lily turned abruptly toward the door to the living room as a green flash burst out of the room, the fireplace to be exact. It must've been the floo.

Sure enough, a second later, as James had started toward the living room, younger Harry had backed away nervously, and older Harry and Ginny had exchanged frowns, a red and bushy haired girl burst into the hallway.

"Uncle Harry! You ought to come look at this!" She stood in front of them, panting as if she had just run a mile. Her gaze quickly drifted to younger Harry, fixing on his lightning shaped scar. "Erm, hello. You're- you're not Al, are you?"


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters or plots

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><p>I'm so, so sorry for the long wait on this one! I promise that this story is not on hiatus, and I really don't have any excuses. Hopefully I'll sort of make up for it with the long chapter.<p>

Thanks to Moony1972, Imworth25cents, SunBlinded, Light1172, and LunaScamander for the reviews!

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>"AARGH!" Hermione shrieked, hands flying up to her ears. She turned to glare angrily at the two redheaded boys who had just apparated on the bed. "Stop doing that!"<p>

Albus gulped nervously as he recognized the boys as nearly carbon copies of Freddy at home, though they had lighter skin and more freckles. Fred and George Weasley. Oh, how was he going to live through this? He had seen his Uncle George at the battle memorials, the way he stared at his brother's tombstone, and the way he seemed dejected for nearly a week after. How was he supposed to act like everything was fine and dandy when one of those two teenagers was going to die in two years?

Which one, though, he wasn't sure. They were identical. George wasn't even sporting the famed hole in his head from a sectumsempra curse. Hopefully Harry had been rubbish at telling them apart as well.

"Hi, Harry," one of them said. "Surprised we didn't hear you upstairs yet. From what you've been sending these two, you ought to be screaming by now."

"You've been reading my mail?" Ron cried, crossing his arms at his brothers.

"Nah, Ginny's doing it for us," the other twin said nonchalantly.

"It would have taken you thirty seconds to walk down the stairs," Hermione said, exasperatedly. "Honestly, it's a waste of good magic."

"Says who?" the first twin asked. "Time is galleons. Anyway, we heard you talking to Mum downstairs, Harry."

"How could you have heard him from all the way upstairs?" Hermione demanded, mirroring Ron's crossed arms position.

Albus watched the argument with wide eyes, trying to comprehend all of the information. Ginny… his mother was here! He desperately hoped they weren't dating, but was relieved when he remembered that it hadn't… developed into anything until his father's sixth year.

Moving on to the next problem, he decided he was going to fake knowing the difference between Fred and George. At least that way he wouldn't be awkward around one of them if he didn't know which was which.

"Why, Hermione, thank you for asking," the second continued. "We've got these." Both reached into their pockets, identical superior smiles on their faces.

Albus realized what they were a second before they pulled them out. "Extendable ears," he whispered before he could stop himself. Giving a slight gasp, he clamped his lips shut and began to mentally berate himself for the mistake.

_Stupid. What are they going to think when Fred and George pull them out? What if someone heard? What if they decide you're a Death Eater? _

Hermione glanced at him for a second, frowning at him. Albus sent her a confused expression, hoping she would dismiss it as the wind or something.

Meanwhile, Fred and George had pulled the said Extendable Ears from their pockets. The large ears looked more disgusting than Al remembered, attached to thin strands that swung, glistening sickeningly in the streaks of light from the window.

No one said anything, staring in silence at the ears. Hoping to make up for his previous mistake, Albus jumped in.

"What are those, exactly?"

One of the twins, (Albus had lost count of which had spoken first) grinned madly. "These, Harry, are Extendable Ears. We're listening in on the meeting."

"You'd better be careful," Ron remarked. "If Mum finds one of those again…"

"It's an important meeting," one of the twins replied, shrugging. "Worth the risk, little brother. We'll put them through the gap under the door."

"Won't work," another voice announced from the doorway. All five occupants of the room turned to see a rather medium sized girl with long red hair in the doorway, smirking easily at Fred and George. "Mum's put an Imperturbable Charm on the door. Tonks showed me; I've been chucking dungbombs at it for a while and they just soar away."

Al blinked in surprise as he recognized his mother's voice, albeit a bit higher pitched. Ginny looked a bit like his sister, especially the way she sauntered confidently into the room, looking each of the teenagers in the eye. Oh, how was he supposed to act normal now when all of these people were either dead or grown up where he came from? No, when he came from?

_Bloody time travel. _

Both twins sighed. "Shame," one of them said. "We wanted to see what Snape's up to."

Albus scrunched his eyebrows in confusion as the four other teenagers' gazes turned on him, as if they were waiting for him to explode. Did it have something to do with Snape? What was wrong with Snape? The man's first name was Al's middle name, after all. He was almost offended.

"Snape?" he tried nervously, biting his lip to see their reactions. They weren't accusing him of anything so far, so that was good.

"He's part of the Order," a different twin said. "Giving a big report tonight too."

"His being part of the Order doesn't make him not a git," Ron said bitterly.

"Bill doesn't like him," Ginny added, nodding as if this ended the matter.

Albus nodded, not sure what to say. He remembered his Uncle Bill, but noted in the back of his mind that he wouldn't have his scars yet. Making a mental promise to remember that when he saw the oldest Weasley brother, he racked his brains of what to say.

"We forgot to tell you, didn't we?" Hermione mused. "Bill's here. He's working for Gringotts still. A desk job."

"Forgot something, did you, Hermione?" one of the twins grinned mischievously. "When's the world gonna blow?"

"Stop being so immature," she snapped, frowning at both of them.

"Charlie's joined too," Ginny continued. "He's making contacts for our side."

"Ah," Al said. He counted up the Weasleys they'd mentioned, realizing that his Uncle Percy was still missing. "And what about Un-Percy?" He closed his lips again, hoping that none of them had noticed.

Hermione was still watching him closely. Albus shifted his feet nervously under her harsh gaze.

Ron, Fred, George, and Ginny all looked more tense than before at the mention of their brother.

"Whatever you do," either Fred or George said, "don't mention Percy in front of Mum or Dad. They won't be happy."

Ron nodded vehemently. "They've had a row. Percy thinks we're all barmy, taking Dumbledore's side."

"Called us poor and everything," Ginny finished, glancing down at her shifting feet. Albus felt a surge of dislike rise up for Percy Weasley. He couldn't believe his own uncle had left his family for such a petty reason.

"Anyway," Ron said, awkwardly. "Dad said that Percy was only promoted in the Ministry because Fudge wants to spy on Dumbledore."

Albus didn't need to know much about a younger Percy to know that he would've been furious. His uncle worked the hardest of anyone he knew, and seemed to almost take personal insult when he discovered something unsavory about any of it.

"Blimey, he must've been mad," he said.

"Yeah. He and Dad were arguing about Dumbledore, and that's about when he mentioned, we've always been, you know, a little short on money, and-"

"-That's awful!" Al cut in.

Ron nodded. "And he left. Lives in London now and everything."

"It's been horrid," Ginny said. "He doesn't believe you either; thinks you're batty, Harry."

"Me?" Albus demanded. He had known that his father had been very anti-Ministry as a teenager, and from the stories he had heard from his parents, aunts, and uncles, it had been perfectly justified. But no one had ever mentioned that even one of the Weasley's hadn't trusted his Dad.

"Yeah, mate. The Ministry's hasn't been treating you well lately," Ron said, glancing at Hermione as if he wanted her to explain.

"Harry, you read the paper, right?" she asked, hands on her hips.

"Erm, sure." Albus frowned (something he seemed to be doing a lot of lately). Was she going to quiz him or something?

"Cover to cover?" Hermione demanded.

"Uh…"

"Obviously not." She rolled her eyes. "Harry, it's not on the front page, that stuff. They tuck it in at the ends of small articles, like a joke. As if you're this attention-seeking fluke who wants everyone to worship you. They slip in snide comments. It's 'A tale worthy of Harry Potter', or someone's had an accident, and they'll say, 'Let's hope they don't get a scar and ask us to worship them next.'"

Albus nearly sighed in relief. _This _he could deal with. He was no stranger to the media and it's false tales, and he was an expert on brushing them off. A bad article in the _Prophet _about him? No big deal. Sure, some of his "rivals" would snicker, but everyone else would get over it. Life goes on, and the newspapers with the articles are tossed out, or used to line the bottom of trunks, or cover books to keep off the ink.

His father hated the media, and Al knew that. Harry had always gotten more irrationally angry over the ridiculous lies the tabloids liked to tell than Ginny or any of Al's siblings. This was the one thing he knew how to respond to.

"_Worship_ me!" he protested. "That's ridiculous! I never wanted anyone to-"

"-We know, Harry. We're on your side," Hermione cut in. "But can't you see what they're doing? They're turning you into something ridiculous; a joke and a fool. Fudge is behind it, no doubt. They want people to think you're just a stupid teenager who's not worth following, and just wants to be famous."

Albus had had some bad clashes with various newspapers, but that was enough to get even him fuming. "Wha- That's insane! Completely stupid, I don't-"

"We _know_, Harry," Ginny interrupted.

"And of course, they won't report the dementors at all," Hermione continued. "That should've been big news, out of control dementors. But someones told them to keep it quiet."

Albus sighed heavily. This whole situation… How had his father gotten out of it?

A loud creaking was heard on the steps, accompanied by the tell tale _thumps _of footsteps. All of the Weasleys stiffened, recognizing the sound.

"Drat," one of the twins said. "That's Mum." With a loud _crack! _Both boys disappeared. Hermione held a hand up to her ear, wincing, and Ron's frown deepened.

Unfortunately, Ginny was left to scramble back up to her room the old fashioned way, guessing correctly that her mother hadn't yet made the turn up the staircase that would have put her in her line of sight.

No longer risking a shouting match, Hermione, Ron, and Albus each relaxed slightly, though Al made sure to keep up his frustrated face, knowing that acting the part was important, especially with the Order.

"Harry," Hermione said abruptly, turning to him. "Are you-"

The door opened, and a bright faced Mrs. Weasley appeared, smiling down at them. "Dinner. Go downstairs and wash up, will you?"

Ron nodded quickly, eager for food, as his mother continued toward Ginny and the twins. Hermione, however, caught Al's arm as he tried to leave.

"Harry, are you sure you're alright? You've been acting oddly since you got here."

Albus felt his pulse quicken under her sharp gaze, and hoped his palms weren't too sweaty from the lies he was planning to tell.

He took a deep breath. "Nothing's wrong. I'm fine, Hermione." And with that, he turned back toward the staircase, Hermione in tow behind him.

Al could almost feel her concerned gaze on the back of his neck.

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><p>1975<p>

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><p><em>February 1st, 1970<em>

_Hi, my name is Lily Evans, and I'm eleven. I just got this book for my birthday, from Petunia. (That's my sister, by the way.) But she doesn't like my friend, Sev. Sev says magic exists, can you believe that? This summer, I'm going to get a letter from a wizard school! I'll get a wand and everything! _

Lily frowned as she tried to place the nickname. Sev… The only person who had a similar name was Severus Snape, the headmaster's portrait who liked to sneer at James behind Mcgonagall's back. He had never even looked at Lily, something she wasn't sure if she should be offended or confused about.

But that wasn't possible. Snape seemed like a right pill to her, always snarling at teachers to make the Gryffindor detentions the worst from his portrait in the dungeons. Sure, her brother was named after him, but it was only his middle name, and that could be overlooked. Not to mention Harry had never explicitly explained the meaning of the three Potter childrens' names.

Continuing to frown, Lily tried to recall what she knew about Snape besides his general nastiness. He had been a Slytherin, and he had black hair and a large, hooked nose. Eyes widening in realization, she opened the last drawer of her grandmother's nightstand again.

There it was. Clearly her grandmother, smiling brightly next to a slightly uncomfortable Slytherin boy-_with black hair and an abnormally large hooked nose_. Popping the discarded picture out of it's frame, Lily turned it over and read the back.

Labeled in neat handwriting that didn't match Lily Evans', read _Lily and Severus, 1973 _

Lily frowned at the picture in distaste. Snape? Really? Hopefully they weren't still friends, as seeing the old professor might even be more awkward than seeing her grandfather. She had some chance, at least, as the photograph had been shoved to the bottom of the drawer.

"Dwelling in old memories, Lils?" Lily, alarmed, turned to see an exasperated Marlene, her large blue eyes occasionally glancing down to the photo in Lily's hands. "Sev was a jerk, anyway. Didn't you hear what his friends did to Mary?" the last sentence was said in a whisper, and Marlene looked over to said girl, as if she hoped she hadn't been overheard.

"Never mind," she continued, louder. "'Course you did. Didn't you tell Snape off for it? Anyway, it's no good to dwell on bad memories, Lily. He's out of your life, and good riddance, really."

Lily found herself nodding involuntarily, making sure that she didn't alert the blond to the fact that she had no idea what the events mentioned had been about. As Marlene turned back to whatever she was doing- it looked like she was doodling on her homework, but Lily couldn't see very well-she flipped further ahead in the diary. She had no intention to read about her mother's relationship with Severus Snape, and from what Marlene had said, it seemed her grandmother was done with him anyway.

She stopped on an entry titled in neater handwriting than before, _September 22nd, 1973._

_James Potter is so stupid! Today he decided Mary looked better with green hair, and none of us could figure out how to change it back. The arrogant git even transfigured Marlene's pen into a matchstick because he was done with his homework. That annoying Black boy helped as well._

_At least Sev's here, but we're in different houses…_

Lily frowned, flipping forward more.

_December 2nd, 1974,_

_James was stupid as well today. Joking around in class, the arrogant prick. I noticed he had cuts on his arms too, and so did Black. They were probably the ones up at one in the morning last night, messing around. That means they also woke Alice up, and she slept through the written charms quiz and now she's freaking out. _

_On another, less annoying but more depressing note, tonight was full moon, and Remus looked sickly all yesterday. He wasn't in class (something about helping his sick mother but please, I know that's a lie) I do hope he'll be up on his feet soon. I think I'll tell him that I know his secret next week…_

She felt a surge of affection for her grandmother, who seemed to have no qualms about Remus's lycanthropy. From what Lily had payed attention to in History of Magic, people in the First Wizarding War liked to shun Slytherins and werewolves, often mish mashing the two into the same category-enemies. She felt a surge of relief that she didn't have to remember to act strange around Remus, who had been one of her father's mentors and friends. The fact that Teddy was a metamorphagus helped quite a bit in the "acting normal around Remus" department as well, seeing as he tended to choose his appearances more to fit the pictures of Nymphadora Lupin Lily had found.

She flipped forward a few pages, eager to find the entry about how Snape had lost her grandmother's trust.

Lily frowned at the page, skipping the text to focus on the strange wrinkling and blotches on the paper. Tears. Someone had cried over this book, right on this page, probably as the passage was written, judging by the smudged ink. The writing was erratic and messy, different from Lily Evans's normal rushed, angry penmanship when she talked about James Potter, or the calmer, neater handwriting when she wrote about Snape or the girls who shared her dorm.

Lily focused back on the writing, her forehead wrinkling as she contemplated the entry.

_March 14th, 1975_

_Mary's gone. Mary's gone and we don't know where she is. She could be anywhere, maybe not even on Hogwarts grounds anymore, and Dumbledore's away, so we can't track her. Hestia hasn't gotten out of bed since she disappeared and Marlene shows up to class with red eyes every day. Black and Potter haven't even played any tricks, and it's times like these when I remember that they're the nicest of the ancient wizarding families, along with the Mckinnons. (Which shows to go how horrible the rest of them are.) _

_But I'm just so angry! No one's seen Avery or Mulciber since the disappearance, and they're part of Sev's group when I'm not with him. I'm tired of standing up for him! It's practically proven that they did something to Mary, and all he can say is "They're not so bad!" They're not so bad? THEY'RE NOT SO BAD? I'm finished with his whole thing. Sev can pick his own friends, but I won't be following._

_Mary. _Lily turned to look at the girl for a moment, taking in her seemingly bubbly personality. She was muttering in Welsh again, and Alice seemed to be trying to keep up. Lily considered herself a good observer, an expert in catching people's quirks and understanding their motivations. (Of her two other siblings, she was the only one who could effectively plan against a revenge prank.) Either Avery and Mulciber hadn't been too harsh on Mary, which Lily couldn't determine, as she didn't know who either of the two students were, or she was very good at hiding things.

For some reason, Lily suspected that it was the second case.

She turned the page, eager to find out how Mary had made it back. She felt a twinge of guilt at her interest in the other girl's affairs, but if she was going to be Lily Evans, she had know, didn't she?

_March 16th, 1975_

_Mary's in the hospital wing right now. Oh, it's so _horrible! _She's got scratches all over her, and every time she wakes up, she's shaking. She won't talk to any of us, just Madame Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore. Professor Mcgonagall says that she'll be alright, but we just want to see her. Marlene was all for sneaking it yesterday night, but Alice and I vetoed her. Hestia was neutral, which was surprising, as she's usually on board with all of Marlene's ridiculous schemes, but I think she's scared of the Slytherins now. I just hope Mary will be alright._

_In other news, I haven't talked to Sev in a while. I think he's mad because I thanked James and Sirius yesterday in the Great Hall. I didn't mention, did I? James and Sirius found Mary in the dungeons last night. I'm not sure why they were wandering the school at eleven o'clock, but at this point, I don't care. They heard Mary, and walked in to find Avery and Mulciber hexing her. Sirius claimed that he valiantly fought of seventeen Slytherins, but James rolled his eyes and told me that it was just the two. They certainly deserved thanking, and I don't care what Sev says. He can hang out with his Death Eater friends if he wants._

Lily made note of the fact that her grandfather and her father's godfather were addressed as their first names in the passage. Was this how James finally got Lily to like him? She hadn't seemed to mess up much yet, and she had acted like she hated Potter. None of Lily Evans's friends had made any indication that she was doing something wrong, anyway. Did that mean her opinion had changed in just a few months?

Skimming the next page, and realizing that it was just about classes and helping Mary get back on her feet, she flipped forward a few pages, stopping abruptly when she noticed one that had been written in practically all caps.

_June 1st, 1975_

_I'M NOT TALKING TO POTTER OR BLACK EVER AGAIN. THIS WHOLE ENTIRE THING IS RIDICULOUS. THEY'RE BULLIES AND HORRIBLE PEOPLE AND THE ONLY TIME THEY WERE EVER WORTH BEING NICE TO WAS WHEN THEY FOUND MARY, AND THAT WAS ONLY BECAUSE THEY WERE OFF MAKING TROUBLE. _

_And don't even get me started on _Snape. _He's despicable; heading to the same places Avery and Mulciber are. Of course, he's right. Mudblood, that's me. Is there a problem with that? Is there? _

_It's not like he felt any differently about the other muggle borns at school. He called all of them mudbloods; why am I any different? I'm finished. I'll stick with Marlene, Alice, Hestia, and Mary for the rest of the year. _

Lily sighed. Okay, so she was right in acting like she hated James. That was a relief. She was still curious about the whole ordeal, but she could understand where her grandmother was coming from. Snape, calling her a mudblood? At least, where-no, when she was from, that was unforgivable. A wartime slur.

There were almost no entries after that, a few more about classes and one Lily looked over briefly about another encounter with Snape. The last few pages of the book were empty, and it looked as if they would only last until the end of the year.

With a heavy sigh and the thought that she was going to have to return to acting again, Lily shut the book and put it back in the drawer. She checked the time on the small alarm clock, noticing that they still had about ten minutes left in the period before she could talk to Mcgonagall.

"I'm, uh, going to get dressed," she announced, motioning toward the bathroom. "Mcgonagall doesn't have anyone next class, yeah?"

"You have Arithmancy, remember Lily?" Alice said, glancing up from reading Mary's letter over her shoulder.

"She'll give me a pass," Lily replied confidently.

"What do you mean? You'll still be late. She'll have to walk you to Arithmancy, and she never does that."

She sighed. There was no way she could explain her whole situation right now. She didn't care if she was late for Arithmancy, and if she stayed, which hopefully she wouldn't, she would get in detention for it anyway. She didn't even take Arithmancy.

"I don't care. I have to talk to her."

Hestia sighed and rolled her eyes. Lily could see Marlene do the same, though half of her face was blocked with a textbook.

Rolling her eyes as well, she turned to one of the closets that lined the dorm walls.

"That's Mary's closet," Alice said, looking at her with concern. "Lily, you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Lily replied, turning toward the closet on the other side of the bed. "I'm fine. Promise." Sighing with relief as she carefully took the neatly pressed uniform out of the closet and headed for the bathroom. The uniform was familiar, and even though she was taking off her worn denim shorts and old sweatshirt that had been a birthday present three years ago, she didn't feel uncomfortable.

She'd fit in more this way, anyway.

"Lily! Let's go! If you want to talk to Mcgonagall, we've got to leave now!"

Lily took a deep breath, stepped out of the bathroom, and prepared to go back to playing a part, however badly she did it.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters

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><p>Sorry for the wait for this chapter!<p>

Thanks to LunaScamander17 and twitchthewitch for the reviews

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>"Rose!" Older Harry gasped, stepping in front of her. "This is a really bad time, maybe you should go back home for now."<p>

"That's not Albus," Rose said, ignoring her uncle. "He's got a scar on his forehead."

"Erm," Harry said, nervously scratching the back of his neck. "Well, yes, he does. But really, it's not important, just go _home_, please."

"He's got _your _scar on his forehead," she continued, eyes still locked onto the younger Harry's brow. He shifted uncomfortably, reminded of the countless times he had noticed people's heads turning as he walked down Diagon Alley or even through the Hogwarts corridors.

Oh, to not have the pesky lightning bolt carved into his temple.

"Who is this?" Lily said, folding her arms menacingly as she glared at the girl. Rose didn't seem hostile, but the way younger Harry seem to shrink backward as she gazed at his scar irritated her. She didn't know why, exactly. _Mother's intuition_ echoed in the recesses of her brain, but she defiantly shoved it into a deep corner of her thoughts. She was just going to ignore that tidbit for now.

"Rose," Ginny interjected helpfully, glancing toward Lily. Her gaze returned to the bushy haired girl, and she continued to speak. "Rose, there's a lot to explain and it'd be easier if we did it after we've fixed it. Or not at all." The last sentence was muttered under her breath, barely made out by Lily.

"This probably has something to do with the picture Dad found at work," Rose decided, still studying the younger Harry. Slowly, she pivoted to fix her stare at Lily. "Are you really Lily?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"Th-that's my name," Lily spluttered, alarmed at the demanding question.

"Rose!" Older Harry said. The girl whirled around to face her uncle. "What's this about a picture Ron found?"

"Ron?" the Harry that stood next to Lily muttered to himself. "I could've sworn she looked like Hermione… Oh." He started to grin, ignoring the heated conversation going on between Rose and older Harry in his reverie. "I _knew _it!" He proclaimed triumphantly, just loud enough that Ginny sent him an amused glance.

Lily turned her attention back to the pair arguing in the middle.

"What picture?" Harry repeated, frowning at his niece.

"Dad took it off a reporter at work," Rose said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Something about illegal trespassing on private property and stupid paparazzi people. He was busy owling Ministry officials like a madman, but he told me to go get you to have a look." Her gaze drifted over to Harry and Lily again, before flicking back to her uncle. "Where are Albus and Lily, Uncle Harry?"

"It's a very long story," Ginny interrupted again. She seemed to be good at that, stepping in at the right time. "And we should tell Ron."

Older Harry sighed, running his hand through his hair. Lily's fingers twitched _again_, but she was determined to hold her ground. Still, an image of a cocky James Potter with his hand in his jet black hair as he relentlessly pursued her persisted in her mind. It wasn't a pleasant picture.

"Yeah, I'll talk to Ron, but I don't want to send anyone else through the floo," he said, looking pointedly at the two time travelers, giving the feeling that by anyone, he meant them. "If they end up in the wrong place, then we could seriously muck things up."

"I'm pretty sure I can bloody floo somewhere," younger Harry protested indignantly.

"Of course, because you were trying to end up in Knockturn Alley," his older counterpart replied.

"I'll stay here," Ginny offered, shrugging. "Rose should go back with you. Ron's probably getting worried since she hasn't reappeared within ten seconds."

Older Harry rolled his eyes affectionately. Next to Lily, the younger Harry seemed to be trying to hold back a laugh.

Rose seemed rather taken back at being discussed as if she wasn't in the room. "I want to know who those people are, if they aren't my cousins," she demanded, gesturing widely in Harry and Lily's direction. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she looked as if she was thinking so hard she would figure out who they were for herself before anyone could tell her. "Plus, I just saw Al. He came in while I was doing my hair. Bloody git," she added, more to herself, and James stifled a snicker across the room. "But anyway, he can't have gone far in the past hour, could he?"

"Wizards, Rosie," James reminded her. Rose folded her arms and glared at her cousin, affronted at being called a pet name. "Al could be at the moon by now."

"Well, I'll have you know-"

"Everyone calm down!" Ginny said, moving swiftly to intercept the two arguing teenagers. "Albus is _not_ on the moon, I promise, Rose. And James, you knew that," she continued, glaring at her son. "Just..." she shook her head, exasperated. "Rose, go with Harry. James, stay here with… Our guests." Ginny focused on Rose, gauging her reaction to the term.

"Guests," Rose echoed, smirking a little. "I knew they weren't Al and Lily."

"I _am_ Lily," Lily replied, clenching her fists. "I told you."

"Not my Lily," the red haired girl said triumphantly, standing up straighter. Lily was disappointed to see that she was the taller of the two.

"I thought I told you to stop fighting," Ginny interrupted sharply. She directed Rose to older Harry, who had been watching the tense conversation with meek curiosity. Muttering something to Ginny as he passed her, he took Rose back into the living room, where presumably the fireplace was located.

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><p>Harry was starting to worry. He had come home from work expecting an overexcited Lily wanting to play Quidditch and a timid Al hoping for a decent game of chess that didn't involve being slaughtered by his uncle. Instead he had him and his mother and they were both younger than him.<p>

_That's a sentence I never thought I'd have to think._

Though, he supposed weird things came with being an Auror, and, well, being him. You didn't find a basilisk that petrified people by slithering through an old castle's pipes and doing a supposedly dead murderer's bidding without adjusting quickly to strangeness.

He could tell that Rose was bursting with questions, more so than normal, at least, but he didn't want to deal with them right now, so instead he simply didn't answer any of them.

Honestly, the young Weasley was so similar to Hermione, it was almost comical. The only difference was the red hair, and Harry could tell that his younger self had noticed it quite quickly after he had learned that her father was Ron. Rose had picked up the raw determination to know absolutely everything there was to know from her mother, as well as the confidence Hermione had gained after years of ignoring the press.

Rose stepped through the fireplace behind him into her family's living room. Harry made to go upstairs, but stopped at her intense expression.

"You can't possibly believe you're just going to drop me here," she said, haughtily. "I'm _curious_. I'm coming with you to see the picture."

Harry blinked, surprised by the demand.

"Mum says to always foster curiosity," Rose added.

"You can't come with me, Rose. I don't know what it is your Dad's got, but if he had wanted it shown to you, he would have done it himself."

"You never know," the red haired girl reasoned. "You could take me up there and ask him."

"Rose, this could be important, okay?" Harry said. "I need to go." He had a dim feeling that Rose wasn't going to take that as a final answer, but dismissed it. He had been wondering what could be so bad about this picture, but anything that he had to be called in for couldn't be good, and he didn't want his niece tangled up in it. As Rose, pouting slightly, ducked into the kitchen, he made for the stairs.

The Granger-Weasley home was relatively small by their family's standards, though it had no haphazardly placed rooms charmed not to bring the whole building down, unlike the Burrow. It was a small cottage in the outskirts of Harrogate, previously owned by an ancient line of Scottish wizards. What a Scottish family had been doing for centuries living in Yorkshire had unfortunately escaped Harry.

It was because of the house's magical history that he had to jump the fourth step from the top, as when agitated it liked to swear in a gravelly Scottish accent. Most of the curse words had been rendered obsolete due to time, but were coming back into fashion among the fifth year Gryffindors because of Hugo's fondness for rough language.

Harry found Ron and Hermione exactly where he'd thought they'd be, in the study, which was really a small desk surrounded completely by overstuffed bookshelves. They were both bent over the desk, staring with furrowed brows at what looked like a photograph.

He stood in the doorway for a few moments, but apparently his entry hadn't caught their attention. "'Lo," he said, softly, grinning a little as both of his friends jumped.

"Harry!" Hermione said, grinning broadly at the same time Ron did. "Oh, we've got something to show you."

They waved him over to the small desk, pulling him in between them. As Harry got a good luck at the picture, he realized exactly what it was.

It was him. But not him as he was now, but the younger version of himself sitting at home at that moment. The younger Harry seemed to be looking off the the side, bangs pushed away from his face so the lightning shaped scar on his forehead was clearly visible in the photograph. Harry watched as the younger him turned away. Then the picture reset, and his temple was in sight again.

Next to him stood Lily Evans, but instead of looking off to the side, she had been looking out the window as the picture was taken. As the photo continued, she frowned slightly, and then turned to Harry next to her before the image reset.

"He's got a scar," Ron said, slightly faintly, as if he still couldn't believe it. "Harry, why has Al got a scar?"

Harry opened his mouth, trying to form a decent answer.

Hermione interjected. "Ron found the photo at work; a reporter from the Daily Prophet came in asking for comments. He confiscated it from the woman, she was awfully angry about it, but it _was _trespassing, that's under Decree 46."

Ron nodded along with his wife, still focused on the picture. "She kept saying you'd been shrunk or something, and then she held up a picture of your mother." Now he was looking at Harry, gauging his reaction. "Funny thing is, Lily-_our_ Lily looked more similar to your mum that I'd noticed before."

Harry's eyes flicked between his two friends, waiting to see if they were going to continue. He had a long story to tell, and he didn't want to be interrupted. Hermione and Ron looked back at him with equal intensity, though with more confusion mixed in.

Deciding he ought to start explaining, Harry began. "Lily looks like my mum because she _is _my mum," he said.

"That's a bit messed up, mate," Ron remarked.

"What?" Hermione exclaimed at the same time.

"Let me explain," Harry said, exasperated. "That's not our Lily. I came home to Ginny and James, who were talking about time travelers. Lily looks like my mum because she's actually Lily Evans, and Al's got a scar because he's me."

"Where are Lily and Albus then?" Hermione said, frowning as she considered the story.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, shoulders drooping as he thought of his son and daughter. He had considered where they were, and the question had been nagging him since Ginny had explained. It was worrying her too, he could tell. They could be anywhere, but other incidents with time travel had inclined him to think that Lily and Albus were someplace connected with Lily Evans and himself.

_Merlin_, he hoped Al wasn't in 1995. He couldn't imagine someone else going through that-he wasn't particularly sure how he had survived that year without going insane himself. Lily… he wasn't sure what had happened to his teenage mother and father, but he desperately hoped she was okay.

"I don't know," Harry answered finally. He knew Hermione and Ron well enough to know that they had the same concerns about where the two teenagers were. "I-I just…"

"Harry," Hermione said soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find them."

"In the meantime, though," Ron mused, "we ought to make sure the two time travelers are safe. It could be a plot, you know. If either your…" He gulped. "Mum, or you, die, then we'll be in serious trouble."

"Or it could create an alternate universe," Hermione remarked. "I'll have to look into it. And learn a bit more on time travel, of course. I can go to the Hogwarts library, that's the biggest Wizarding one in Britain, isn't it?"

Both Harry and Ron shrugged and made general noises of ambivalence.

"We've got to be more careful, though, you're right, Ron," Harry said. "If the Prophet gets ahold of this…"

"Rita Skeeter's in charge these days, did you hear?" Ron added. "It would be a disaster."

"You're both right," Hermione agreed. "We need to be much more careful. Ron, you don't think the reporter had any other copies of the photo?"

"I dunno," Ron said. "I'll have to find out. You go to the library, Hermione. Harry, make sure the time travelers are alright. I'll tell Rose and Hugo we'll be out, and then I'll go to the Prophet's main offices."

"Right," Hermione said. "Erm, I'll be off then, I guess. Research first. I should probably talk to Lily and the younger you as well, Harry," she added as, with a flick of her wand, she Disapparated.

Ron frowned. "You can't Apparate to Hogwarts."

"You only know that because of her, mate. She's probably gone to Hogsmeade. Mcgonagall will let her in." Harry ran his hand through his hair again, his thoughts once again returning to his missing children.

"Hey," Ron said, as if he could tell what Harry was thinking about. "We'll find them. Blimey, we put Hermione on the case, didn't we? If she can't find them, no one can."

_Then what do we do if she can't?_

The two men made their way out of the study, both in considerably worse moods now then when they had entered.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters

Some lines were taken from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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><p>Sorry for the lateness on this! Thank you to all of the favorites and follows, they're really appreciated!<p>

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>Albus skipped a few stairs to catch up to Ron, who was peering over the banister on the landing before the ground floor. It appeared Ginny had already descended the last flight of stairs.<p>

"Shh!" Ron hissed as he and Hermione approached. "We might be able to hear something."

Al wasn't the most comfortable with spying on people-that was more Lily's thing, but he leaned over the banister to watch below as well.

A crowd of witches and wizards muttered to each other in the hallway below, some of them, he noticed with amusement, rubbing their noses and casting dirty looks at the dusty walls. Glancing over at Ron and Hermione, he noticed that they were leaning further over the banister, staring down at the people below with determination.

"Snape's there," Ron said with obvious disgust. Albus frowned, and decided he was going to find out what was so bad about his namesake eventually. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly sure how.

Al almost jumped when a flesh colored string descended to the floor below right in front of him. Glancing upward, he noticed Fred and George sharing an Extendable Ear on the landing above, clearly trying to do the same thing he, Ron, and Hermione were doing.

The ear was abruptly pulled up, and he heard a faint "Dammit," from upstairs, and then feet on the creaky wood.

"Snape's gone now," Hermione noted, taking her weight off the banister and turning to smile at Al.

"He never stays for dinner, thank Merlin," Ron added as he turned to go down the steps. Hermione followed, with Al at the back. "C'mon, I'm hungry."

The three teenagers found Ginny at the next landing, apparently trying to glean information just as they and Fred and George were.

"Got anything interesting?" Ron asked her.

"No," she said, sighing. Albus waited for her to run her fingers through her hair like she always did when she was thinking, but her hands stayed dangling at her sides. He sighed too. She probably wouldn't do it for a while anyway. "They all stopped talking when they walked near me. I think there are a few silencing charms too, but they'd be gone now."

"Remember to be quiet when we get to the bottom," Hermione muttered to Albus as they continued their descent. He was about to ask why, but thought the better of it when he realized that he might already be expected to know.

His question was soon answered when there was a loud _crash! _from the end of the hall. Al turned abruptly toward the door, and saw Tonks sprawled on the ground, having apparently tripped over an umbrella holder.

"Oh, blimey," Ginny muttered, covering her ears. Al was about to ask why, but that was soon answered as well.

Across the hall, he noticed moth eaten curtains that he had dismissed before as part of the normal setting in his overwhelmed state opened, revealing a painting. In the frame sat a woman with the most wrinkled skin he had ever seen, with scraggly black hair and eyes that were almost hazel.

Opening her mouth, she let out one of the worst shrieks Al had ever heard. Her grotesque throat widened as she screamed, waking up all of the other portraits so they shouted too, creating such a cacophony that he stuck his fingers in his ears.

"_Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-bloods, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers!" _

Tonks was loudly apologizing as Ms. Weasley assured her that it wasn't her fault, though the exasperated look on her face suggested otherwise. Albus still had his hands clamped over his ears, and so did Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. The four were rooted in place, watching as the scene unfolded.

A man ran out of the kitchen into the hallway. He had dark, curly hair that fell just past his chin, and a messily trimmed black goatee. A long trenchcoat flew out behind him as he ran down the hallway, shabby leather shoes clacking against the wooden floors. He was headed straight from the screaming portrait, strange, as everyone else was shying away from it with obvious distaste.

"Shut up, you horrible hag! Shut _up_!" He shouted as he neared the screeching woman.

"_Yoooou!_" The portrait shouted. "_Blood traitor! Abomination! Shame of my flesh!_"

"_I_-_said_-_shut_-_up!_" The man roared again. Lupin leaped forward to help him as they shoved the curtains closed, each man strained from the effort. The woman's screeches were silenced, much to the relief of everyone in the hall.

Al watched with wide eyes as the man turned around to face him, smiling with fake satisfaction. His features were vaguely familiar now that they weren't moving and sharpened under the light. It was like he had seen them in an old wedding photo, or something. Whatever it was, he couldn't quite place the man.

"Hello, Harry," he said, the air of satisfaction disappearing quickly to a quiet grimness. "I see you've met my mother."

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>Mcgonagall was glaring at her, and Lily was shaking. The walk to the currently empty Transfiguration classroom had been bad enough, all unfamiliar faces in vaguely recognizable halls, though they somehow looked older than she remembered. Marlene and Alice had stuck close to her, brushing shoulders, with Hestia trailing slightly behind them. Mary walked ahead, waving to people. They greeted Lily sometimes, but she kept her head down, clutched Lily Evans's books tight to her chest and walked fast, which seemed to luckily be normal for her grandmother. She had said brief goodbyes to her dorm mates before gratefully ducking into the room.<p>

She had stood there for a few moments, taking it all in. It looked the same, old wooden desks arranged in front of a black board, wrought iron lanterns hanging from the stone ceiling.

Mcgonagall herself sat in the teacher's desk, a little taller and only slightly less wrinkled, but equally terrifying. Frowning as she noticed Lily in the doorway, she stood up.

"Miss Evans?"

_Potter_, Lily almost let out, but remembered that Mcgonagall would probably associate her with James Potter in a more romantic sense than familial if she started out with that.

The teacher stood up, staring at Lily. Biting her lip, the red headed girl struggled to keep her hands steady.

"Are you alright?"

"No," slipped out before she could think about it. Lily grimaced as the word left her lips, wishing she had planned out the conversation beforehand. Her mind had been too filled with anxiety and the crushing sense of solidarity that she hadn't properly thought about how the conversation would go.

"No?" Mcgonagall repeated. "Shall I take you to Madame Pomfrey?"

"No!" Lily exclaimed. "No, I need help. F-from you. I think." Blast it, why was she being so jittery? Mcgonagall had always been scary, but the Slytherin had always held up well under her cutting gaze when she was getting her and her brothers out of trouble.

"From me?" Mcgonagall nodded, still frowning in Lily's direction. "Why don't you sit down, Miss Evans." She briskly sat down at her desk, gently pressing her thumbs under her chin to hold up her head, and regarding Lily with such a familiar look that it almost gave her vertigo. Gulping in nervousness, the red head obediently sat down.

"Yes." At least that answer was easy. She sounded calm but driven, even though the first emotion was distinctly incorrect.

"And with what? I must say, I know Transfiguration isn't your best subject, but you don't usually come to me for direction."

"It's not about Transfiguration," Lily said flatly. "I mean, not that I don't like Transfiguration, it's just not giving me trouble right now." She'd messed up again, the words falling out of her mouth before she could shut it. If she was going to get through this without running the conversation in her mind over and over again that night, she needed to get that under control.

"I see," Mcgonagall said contemplatively, in the way that teachers do when they don't see at all. "And if not about my class, what has forced you from your compelling Arithmancy course to seek my assistance?"

Confident body language included relaxed muscles and an open stance, eye contact and clear speech. Confidence also translated into trustworthiness, which was essential if she was going to get her eventual headmistress's help. Lily repeated the lines in her head, derived from years of watching the way her family and friends moved when they weren't paying attention to movement. Forcing herself to meet Mcgonagall's eyes, she gently leaned back in her chair before speaking. She could do this. She just needed to control the situation. "It's a matter of time travel," she said, disguising her amazement at her calm tone with a tense smile.

"Time travel," Mcgonagall repeated, raising her eyebrows. Lily forced herself to keep her hands at her sides, keeping up her hopefully confident looking act. "I'm sorry, Miss Evans, but I don't deal with time travel problems from students very often. Would you like to elaborate?"

"Today I woke up in the year 1975, and yesterday I woke up in the year 2022, and I don't know how to get back home," Lily said, managing to keep her shoulders square, but words tumbling haphazardly through her lips anyway.

"Lily Evans-"

"It's Potter," Lily said, glancing downward to avoid the shocked expression on the teacher's face.

"Lily… Potter?" There was disbelief evident in her voice, and all of the sudden Lily wished she was anyway but here. She had to keep the future a secret and gain trust at the same time, and she was already failing at the first item on her list.

"Yes."

"Alright, Miss Potter. If you are not my student, then where is Miss Evans? You certainly bear a good resemblance to her, and if you are really from 2022, then you could conceivably be a relative."

"I don't know where she is," Lily said. "And I can't tell you too much about the future. It could mess things up, and I don't know how to Obliviate someone." Seeing that she was gaining trust, Lily let herself drop her shoulders and frown a little, though keeping the tears hidden behind her eyelids when she blinked.

"I see. Well then, Lily…" Mcgonagall coughed in apparent discomfort with the new correlation. "... Potter. Why don't you explain what's happened since you woke up in 2022?"


	11. Chapter 11

Hey guys, I'm back. I don't want to give you any excuses, but I apologize for the four month break. From now on I'm going to try harder to update more regularly.

Thanks for sticking with this. Enjoy.

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><p>Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>There was a <em>woosh<em> from the fireplace- the floo, Harry guessed, and then silence from the living room. He watched as Ginny, sighing, rubbed her hands over her temples.

"This is a mess," she said. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Harry and Lily. "Want anything to eat?"

"No, thank you," Lily replied immediately from behind him.

"Right then." Ginny nodded. "Harry?"

"Erm, no." He stuck his hands in his pockets and opened his mouth to speak, but she was already heading back toward the kitchen.

"So everything turns out alright then?" he asked to her receding back.

Ginny spun around, eyes flashing in surprise. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught James ducking back into the living room. Next to him, Lily shifted uncomfortably, though a look of curiosity crossed her face.

Ginny folded her arms across her chest before answering. "It's a long story. I don't want to mess things up in the time stream or whatever the bloody hell it's called. I…" she trailed off. "I'm sorry."

"You can't even tell me whether Voldemort's gone or not? What about memory charms? Can't you just make us forget all of this once you send us home?" Harry couldn't keep the desperation from tainting his tone.

Lily visibly tensed. "Why've you got to worry about You-Know-Who?" she demanded. When Harry didn't respond, she turned to Ginny. "Why's he got to worry about You-Know-Who? That's our generation's problem!"

"Not hardly," Ginny said. "And Harry," she continued, "you've forgotten I know you. If I tell you everything you'll do something reckless and probably get hurt, and I'd rather that didn't happen. I'm sorry."

"Thanks for your help," Harry said, though not loud enough for Ginny to hear in the next room.

"The hell did she mean, not hardly?" Lily cried, glaring at Harry. "Tell me, will you?"

"I don't know if I should-"

"Oh, stop it!" Lily interrupted. "You're doing exactly what Ginny did to you to me! Memory charms, remember?"

Harry swallowed "I can't do a memory charm."

"We're in a house that has contact with the entire wizarding community in England; _someone_ will know how to perform a bloody memory charm. Open up, will you?"

He sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Voldemort's still around but the Ministry doesn't believe it."

"That's ridiculous. Why not?"

"It's sort of a long story."

Lily shrugged, raising her eyebrows. "Well, apparently we're time travelers now. That shouldn't be a problem, yeah?"

Harry shifted his weight, pausing to think and ignore the squirming in his stomach. He had always wanted to know more about his mother and father, but the people who could tell him the most about his parents had either been out of contact or in Azkaban for most of his life. Even Aunt Petunia might've known something, but she was hardly going to mention her dreaded sister in front of Uncle Vernon. Talking to Lily in the past hour or so had afforded Harry with more information than he had had his entire life, and it was taking a while to process.

Lily was funny, quick tempered, and talked fast when she was nervous. She was also definitely more grounded than Harry was. He had already filed this into the front of his brain, the memories carefully preserved so he could replay them until they had to be erased. The whole situation was by far the oddest thing he'd ever gotten into, and even thinking about the prospect made his head swim a little.

"Well?" Lily prompted impatiently, tapping her left foot on the wooden floor in a steady rhythm.

"Erm," Harry started. "Well, he was sort of… out of the picture for a while, because…" He gulped, wishing desperately that he was a better liar, "_someone_ has almost killed him. And then then he… erm, he used that person's blood to come back."

"Someone's blood?" Lily echoed, frowning as she paused to think. "I think I've read about that somewhere… Potions research, maybe?"

"Probably not," Harry said.

"Yeah," she continued. "Guess I wouldn't know. 'S not like I've read the whole library. Anyway," Lily switched topics abruptly, "who was that someone?"

Harry opened and closed his mouth, racking his mind for an alternative to blurting out the truth. Luckily, just then James burst out of the living room, feet pounding heavily on the floor and he dashed to the kitchen, probably to talk to Ginny. Their conversation was muffled by the walls, but it was obviously very loud.

"Harry," Lily said, pulling on his arm. Harry stood stock still, a solution still missing from his mind. However, his fears were quelled as she continued. "Wanna find out what's happened to Voldemort?"

He had, of course, been wanting to go make sure everything was alright since they'd realized they were in the future. It had been hard enough to refrain from dashing off earlier. "How-"

"Shut up and follow me," Lily said. She shot a covert look toward the kitchen door, checking to make sure that Ginny and James were still inside.

Harry trailed after her as she ducked into the living room, peering out of the window before turning to go towards the area under the stairs. He felt a slight sense of panic as she opened the cupboard, praying that he wouldn't see a small mattress with worn blankets draped over it, but there were only a couple of umbrellas and a pair of abnormally large rain boots, so big that they took up nearly half of the cupboard.

Lily huffed before shutting the cupboard and putting two fingers on her chin as she stopped to think.

"Erm," Harry said. "What exactly are you doing?"

"Well, where do people usually keep… mementos? Old trinkets and newspaper clippings?"

"Dunno," Harry replied truthfully.

Lily furrowed her eyebrows and turned to frown at him. "What, don't James and me-God, that sounds weird-keep anything around?"

Harry felt his a lump in his throat beginning to grow, but managed to keep his nervousness down to his tapping fingers as he shook his head. "I said, I dunno. Why d'you need to know where they keep their old newspapers?"

She frowned as she turned to him. "Well, don't you want to know what happened to Voldemort?"

Arms folded, Harry raised his eyebrows. "Well yeah, but I thought it would be rude."

"No you don't. You're making fun of me," Lily decided. "Besides, we know it's not dangerous, so why not? Sod being polite."

Lily was a flash of red hair as she went back to inspecting the walls for something. Harry ran a hand through his hair before speaking. "So what are you looking for?"

"A door to the basement."

"It's in the kitchen," Harry reminded her, thinking of when they had first arrived, confused and in a strange place. So much had happened since then, all in just a few hours.

"Well, yeah, but maybe there's another one." Lily walked past the staircase, into a hall that lead to a door with a large window, revealing a neatly mowed lawn and what looked like half of a quidditch pitch. "I mean, it is an old house."

"Is it?" Harry had no prior knowledge on what sort of houses people built. Being locked up in a cupboard or bedroom for most of his time with muggles hadn't exactly provided an adequate education on interior design.

"Think so. They don't make houses like this anymore." She nodded, trying to door handle. It was locked.

"Well, in the 1970s they don't."

Hastily shoving her wand back in her pocket, Lily turned to frown at him. "Erm, no."

"Fifty years ago," said Harry.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, c'mon. It's a guess! Might as well investigate... Don't people have doors to their basements outside?"

"I wouldn't know."

Drawing her wand, Lily tapped the door handle and muttered, "_Alohomora_," the lock clicked open rather loudly, and Harry darted forward to grab the handle before the door could slam into the wall as it opened.

Nodding to each other, both Harry and Lily stepped outside. It was rather warm, and surprisingly sunny for a typical day in England. The green grass of the lawn waved in the wind under three hoops that belonged at one end of a quidditch pitch.

"Aha!" Lily proclaimed, turning to point at concrete stairs that started at an equal height as the lawn, but lead downward to a flimsy-looking screen door.

Harry took the first step, jumping down the old staircase with ease and trying the door, which was locked. He pulled out his wand and unlocked the door. It swung open, scraping a line of dust off of the floor as it turned.

"Well," Harry said.

"Let's go." Lily took a step inside. Harry closed the door behind them, hoping that Ginny and James would be in the kitchen for a while.

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><p>Hugo was now sitting on the couch, humming as he played a game of exploding snap with himself. The fire was crackling merrily, making the room just a little too warm. Or maybe that was just Hugo, who was famously bad at exploding snap.<p>

"Wotcher, Hugo," Harry said, running a hand through his hair.

The red haired boy glanced upward, freezing with a strangely uncomfortable expression on his face before relaxing. "'Lo, Uncle Harry. 'S Albus around? Rose kicked him out after he flooed into her room."

Harry closed his eyes tightly, trying not imagine a struggling Albus in 1995 or 1975. A screaming Lily flashed across his eyelids with an unresponsive Al, and he felt himself struggle to open his mouth.

"No, he's not, Hugo," said Ron quickly.

"He's okay, right?" Harry slowly opened his eyes to see a confused looking Hugo with his gaze set on his father's face.

"I dunno." Harry's voice cracked as it came out.

Hugo seemed to realize that Albus was very not okay. Most of the adults in his life had lived through the Second Wizarding World had good control over their fear and anxiety-they'd certainly lived through enough of it in their teenage years, so the distress that was visible on his uncle's face was troubling. He studied the faces of the two men in front of him for a moment before deciding to change the subject. "You looking for Rose, then?"

"Rose?" Ron echoed, confusion in his tone. "Why? Is she looking for us?"

"No, just haven't seen her. She's probably gone outside or something; nevermind." Hugo collapsed backward on the couch with a sigh.

Harry and Ron exchanged glances.

"Go find Rose," Harry suggested. "We might as well make sure no one else is missing. She might be snooping around somewhere; she was on a mission to find out what we were doing earlier."

"Right," Ron said. "I'll do that." With a nod, he turned back toward the stairs to look for his daughter.

Running his hands through his hair, Harry gave a farewell nod to Hugo before disappearing into the fireplace.

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><p>The basement was dark and dusty, the scent of old cardboard lingering in the air. The floor was rough concrete, the kind that pulled thread from socks when someone walked over it. Single light bulbs hung from the ceiling, no lampshades to darken their stark white glow.<p>

Lily spoke first. "Where do you think it happened?"

Harry looked around, glancing in between boxes on the tall shelves around them to get a look at the rest of the room. "Probably by the stairs." Carefully he began to move through the basement, touching his fingers against the boxes around him to keep from crashing into anything. He could hear Lily's breathing behind him as she followed closely, something that should've been comforting but instead put Harry on edge.

They turned a corner and saw a line of warmer light coming from under a door, which must've lead to the kitchen. Harry drew his wand and flicked it up at the lightbulb above, lighting this area of the basement.

The two stared in silence at the mess in front of them. Broken glass was spread in between piles of fine golden sand around the floor. A brass chain was nearly buried in the middle of the pile, broken off from two wooden bases that Harry noticed were spread near the edges of the disaster.

"It must've fallen," Lily whispered, breaking the uneasy silence. "Look." She pointed up at the shelf next to the broken time turner. On the top shelf, a box was missing, those below look like they had been crushed by something. Upon closer inspection, it looked like old photographs were laying haphazardly on top of the items on the lower shelves and we even partially buried under the gold sand of the time turner.

Harry nodded. Lily, seemingly entranced by the mess in front of her, took a halting step forward before he threw his arm out to stop her.

"Don't," Harry said rather loudly. Lily glared at him, her finger on her lips. He glared back at her. "Don't touch anything. That's probably what got us here."

They both froze as a shout came from upstairs. Breathing heavily, Harry jumped as the light abruptly flicked off. It seemed Lily had had the sense to draw her wand.

"I want to see it!" came from the kitchen.

"Rose," Harry breathed, and Lily nodded. Slowly they began to retreat back away from the door, hoping that if it opened they would be hidden in the shadows.

"What's she doing?" Lily asked, as something that sounded like someone has slammed their hand down on a wooden table came from upstairs.

"No idea," Harry murmured back.

"Rose, it's dangerous," Ginny said, in the kitchen. "I can't let you go down there. We don't need this to get any more complicated."

"Oh, god," Lily said. "She wants to come down here. That's an awful idea."

"Well, you had the same one," muttered Harry.

"Shut up."

The basement door slammed open. Lily swore quietly, and Harry tried to press himself into a shelf, hoping that he wouldn't be noticed.

Rose appeared in the doorway, jumping down the stairs two at a time in her haste to get to the broken time turner. She skidded to a stop at the bottom, inches away from touching the golden sand and disappearing.

Ginny and James followed, reaching the stairs at a slower pace and standing behind the redhead.

"Rose, this is dangerous," Ginny warned, a hand on Rose's arm as if to keep her from diving headfirst into the golden sand. "We should go back upstairs."

"You went down her earlier," Rose replied. "I just want to look. _Merlin_," she gasped, staring at the broken time turner in excitement, "they don't even make these anymore, do they?"

"Rose," Ginny repeated, lower and more intimidating than before. James, standing behind his mother, took a step forward.

Rose was still entranced by the time turner, eyes widening in curiosity and excitement. It was so similar to Hermione that Harry was struck with a twinge of longing for his own time.

He hadn't realized that he too had took a step forward until he felt Lily's hand on his arm, gently holding him back. "We should go back upstairs," she whispered.

Before Harry could answer, several things happened at once. Rose dipped downward to more closely inspect the time turner. James, seeing it as his cousin about to disappear into the clutches of time, surged forward to stop her, slamming into Ginny, who then slammed into Rose, who toppled into the mess of golden sand, disappearing with a flash of light.

There was a moment of shocked silence before Ginny noticed that Harry and Lily were standing on the other side of the mess in front of the four of them.

"_You_ two?" she demanded, voice full of hostility. "What are you doing down here? Didn't I tell you to stay in the living room?" Harry tried to force down his temptation to snarl back at her. Rose was gone. She was on edge. He clamped his tongue in between his teeth.

"Mum," James murmured in warning.

Before Harry could answer, Lily spoke. "We were just curious, really. We've time traveled. We want to know what's changed. There's really no reason why we…" she trailed off, realizing that Ginny's attention had turned back to the time turner.

"Shit," she swore, momentarily dropping her forehead to rest in her palms. With a heavy sigh, she raised her head again. "I need to talk to Harry." With that, she turned to go back upstairs.

The three teenagers were left in silence, until James said, "we really need to start enchanting the lock on the basement door."

No one laughed.


	12. Chapter 12

I did say I was going to try to update in a reasonable time frame, so here's chapter twelve. Albus's POV has been awful to write lately, but I think it'll be easier after this one.

Thanks to LunaScamander17 and Rs223 for reviewing!

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, or any affiliated characters<p>

Some lines were taken from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>Rose didn't know where she was. One moment she had been arguing with her aunt in the basement, and now she was-wherever this place happened to be. It was dreary and dim here, with a rich but dusty carpet under her feet and a towering chandelier above her. The walls had elaborately carved wood paneling covering them, a far cry from the refurbished farmhouse she lived in with her parents and brother.<p>

Nervous, she drew her wand, turning around slowly. There seemed to be several ways out of the room, from a grand staircase in the front to another smaller staircase that seemed to lead to a cellar. Hallways also branched off, leading other rooms that were just as big. It seemed to be a large place, wherever she was.

A feeling of uneasiness came over her and as a precaution she drew her wand, making to turn toward the grand staircase.

"I wouldn't do that," a voice said, coming from behind her. Rose whirled around to see a pale, blond haired boy descending down the stairs, his wand pointed at her heart. "You're intruding," he continued.

She opened her mouth to assure him that this was all a big mistake, but something, possibly the wand that was coming ever closer to her face, convinced her that that wouldn't end well.

"I'm going to have to deal with you." Why was the boy still talking? The faster he tried to curse her, the faster she could retaliate and get out of here.

He flicked his wand, and Rose made to cast a shield charm, but she had underestimated him. The red jet of light hid her in the chest, and everything went dark.

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><p>"That's your mother?" Albus asked, glancing between the curtains behind which the screaming portrait hung and the man standing in front of him. His first thought was <em>I hope it's not hereditary<em>, but he recognized it as rude and kept it to himself. He at least had more tact than James.

"Yeah, dear old mum," the man said sarcastically. "We'd have thrown her out already, but we think she's put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back. Come on down then, before all the other portraits wake up. There aren't a lot of savory characters on these walls."

Hermione and the Weasleys seemed to see this as a dismissal from the scene, and headed down the hall. Al realized he was still standing a few steps up on the staircase, and descended all the way to follow the man down another flight to a basement kitchen.

The room was already crowded with the Order members that were staying for dinner, as well as the house's younger occupants. Albus felt a particularly acute sense of homesickness as the scene reminded him of the multiple gatherings his large family had every year, full of idle chatter and good food.

The basement was noticeably more gloomy than the parties at home. The conversation was for the most part the opposite of idle, from what Al could tell from the faces of the people sitting at the long table. A haze of some type of smoke hung in the air, and bits of parchment were spread out over the table, covered in ink drawings and words that he was too far away to make out.

He noticed his gran-No, Mrs. Weasley, nudging a balding man with ginger colored hair and glasses sitting at the edge of the table. The man looked very similar to his grandfather.

"Harry!" Arthur Weasley said, standing up at shaking his hand. "Good to see you, good to see you. And Sirius, glad you've gotten the portrait quiet again. We've got to fix that, haven't we?"

"This house is so old, we've got to fix everything," presumably Sirius said from behind Albus, voice colored with distaste. "Honestly, I'd prefer we burn it, but it's the only way I can be helpful to the Order right now." Albus was so surprised by the man's-Sirius's identity that he didn't even realize why the man's mother had been hanging on the wall. _Sirius Black_. His father's godfather and his paternal grandfather's best friend. That's why he had seemed like someone from an old photo-he was one of the dead guys in his grandparent's wedding pictures, standing among all of the other dead guys who had been in attendance.

"You alright there, Harry?" Sirius asked, noticing that Albus wasn't paying attention.

"Fine," Al replied, aware that he had spoken to fast for it to seem natural. If he was telling the truth, he wasn't fine, was he?

"Sit down," Mr. Weasley suggested. "Didn't you fly all the way from Surrey? You must be starving."

"We did," Tonks said, stepping into the conversation next to Albus. "Moody almost had us fly to Iceland, as cold as it was."

"Constant vigilance," Sirius replied with a grin. Tonks huffed and rolled her eyes, laughing at the joke. "Go on then Harry," he continued. "Sit down. Molly's almost got dinner ready, I think…"

The table had been cleared of it's mess from before, and now people were talking to each other in strained, though amicable tones. Ron and Hermione seemed to be having an argument over which plates to use as they set the table. Unsure of what to do, Al found himself sitting next a pile of rags and Sirius, who had come to join him.

"Some'n say m' name?" the pile of rags mumbled, sleep still clinging to it's-his? voice. "I 'gree with Sirius…"

"The meeting's over, Mundungus," Sirius said, as if this was normal behavior for what Albus now realized was a man. "Harry's here."

"Harry?" The drowsiness began to fade from the man's eyes and he frowned as if he was trying to remember something. "Owe you an apology, don' I?"

"Do you?" Al replied, shutting his mouth immediately as both Mundungus and Sirius looked rather confused. "I mean, I s'pose it's alright."

The man nodded in response and pulled out a pipe, lighting it with his wand and sticking it in his mouth. Mrs. Weasley's voice came from the kitchen. "Mundungus, I told you to stop smoking that pipe!" With a sigh, the metal thing was returned to his pocket.

After a small incident in which Fred and George almost impaled Sirius with a few knives as they were trying to levitate them onto the table, dinner started. The food was good, so Albus used stuffing himself as an excuse to keep from talking to anyone. Tonks was morphing her nose into different shapes, much to the amusement of Ginny and Hermione, who called out requests for their apparent favorites, while Bill and Lupin appeared to be having a serious conversation about goblins.

Al tried to ignore the confused looks that Sirius was throwing in his direction as he continued to be silent, and out of character, apparently. He should try to start up a conversation, but he wasn't sure how well his father knew Sirius at this point and he didn't want to arouse suspicion with any foreknowledge.

"Time for bed, I think," said Albus's gran, smiling at the others seated at the table, with the exception of Mundungus, who received a rather cold glare.

_Mrs. Weasley, not Gran_, he reminded himself in a stern voice.

"Not just yet, Molly," Sirius said, turning to look at Albus. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you'd do when you got here would be to start asking questions about Voldemort."

Al was suddenly glad that his father had never been threatened by the name, as almost everyone else in the room flinched but he and Sirius.

In all honesty, he had no idea how to respond. He didn't need to know much more about the situation with Voldemort than he already did. This might have been the only advantage of actually paying attention in History of Magic, which was in fact a fascinating subject once you got past the teacher. It couldn't hurt to know more, could it?

"I…" Albus paused, reconsidered, and then continued. "I was a bit overwhelmed. Besides, I didn't think you'd tell me, anyway."

This seemed to be an acceptable answer.

"Sirius," Mrs. Weasley said in warning. "He's not of age. Too young to be in the Order."

"Since when did someone have to be in the Order of the Phoenix to ask questions? Harry's been trapped in that muggle house for months. He's got the right to know about what's been happen-"

He was interrupted by Fred and George also demanding information. Albus kept his mouth shut, casting appropriate looks of pity and Ron, Hermione, and Ginny as they were ussured from the room by order of Mrs. Weasley.

For the most part of the argument between his gran and Sirius, Albus zoned out. He understood the importance of learning what he ought to know at this point in time, but he also didn't want to think about what was going to happen to these people. The longer he was stuck in 1995 the longer third year History of Magic was coming back to him. Sirius was going to be dead in a few months, something that had just struck him. Soon Mrs. Weasley was only going to have five sons. What was he doing just _sitting _here? Shouldn't he tell them?

_Don't be ridiculous_. Al shook himself out of his stupor just as his gran exclaimed, "He's not _James_, Sirius!"

"I'm perfectly clear who he is, thanks, Molly," said Sirius coldly.

"I'm not sure you are!" said Mrs. Weasley. "Sometimes, the way you talk about him, it's as though you think you've got your best friend back!"

"What's wrong with that?" Al cut in, thinking of his Uncle George. Freddy, his son, might not be his twin, but the two were almost inseparable during the holidays anyway. Albus assumed that Sirius and James had been the same way. If he-well, Harry, could be any solace then why not?

"What's wrong, Harry, is that you are _not _your father, however much you might look like him!" said Mrs. Weasley, still sending an angry glare at Sirius. "You are still at school and adults responsible for you should not forget it!"

Sirius protested again, and the argument continued. Albus at the rest of the table watched the two, wary of intervening for fear of Molly's vicious glare or Sirius's tormented anger.

Finally Lupin stood up. "Personally," he said, voice quiet and agreeable. "I think it better that Harry gets the facts-not all the facts, Molly, but the general picture-from us, rather than a garbled version from… others."

Mrs. Weasley seemed very disappointed with this outcome, but she saw that she had been overruled and sat down rather ruefully. Sirius's mouth curled into a slight smirk, but he still looked a little out of sorts after the fight.

There was a long silence before Sirius spoke again. "Okay, Harry… what do you want to know?"

Albus considered this. He wasn't sure what exactly he wanted to know. Each question could have several answers, few of them the information that he needed. He was no good at prompting people with clever wordings the way Lily was-Al's forte was messing with things, not people. Plus, drowsiness was starting to wear at him. It had to be nearing nine o'clock, several hours since the rest of the Order had left.

Sighing, he said, "I want to know what Voldemort's doing. There hasn't been much in the papers…" That would be on the front page, wouldn't it? Certainly there hadn't been anything on the newspaper he'd seen before he'd been collected by the order.

"No, there wouldn't be," Sirius said. "The Ministry's covering it up."

"What's the Order doing to help?" After a moments thought toward the ridiculous self-sacrificing tendencies his mother liked to scold his father for, Albus added, "And how can I help?"

"You can't," Mrs. Weasley cut in. "You're underage, and still at school. It's not safe."

Al waited for Sirius's protest, but none came. He turned to the man in surprise.

"It's too dangerous," Sirius said. "The Order is for of age witches and wizard only."

"And out of school," Mr. Weasley added at the twins' hopeful looks.

"As for what we're doing-" Lupin began, but he was interrupted by a chiming sound, as if someone had rung the doorbell.

Apparently, that's exactly what had happened, as Sirius stood up and frowned. "Who could that be?"

"I'll answer," Lupin said. "Sirius, _sit down_."

The man obliged, scowling rather petulantly and muttering something about bloody Dumbledoors. Al stifled a laugh.

A moment later, a pale faced Lupin reentered the room, followed by a very angry looking Snape. He had the whole room's attention as he stood at the head of the table. "We have a problem," he said, voice low and angry.

A knot grew in Albus's throat as Snape continued to talk.

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>Lily was very glad to have an ally. Mcgonagall had been sympathetic during her explanation, and had even suggested a few ways to get around Lily Evans' particularly nosey professors. She was reminded of the time she and Al had transfigured a few of the newer statues in the castle to pumpkins with insults carved into them like jack-o-lanterns, getting a chewing out from Neville, but merely an amused wink from the headmistress.<p>

It had been a long conversation, so Arithmancy was almost over when she walked in, not helped by the fact that Lily didn't usually take Arithmancy and had been forced to ask a ghost. The Bloody Baron had given her a strange look and a "Miss Evans, are you feeling alright?" before sending her on her way. Despite Alice's worries, the Arithmancy professor was satisfied with a signed note from Mcgonagall, so Lily only had to sit through about ten minutes of what felt much more like muggle maths than a class at a school of magic.

Glad to find that she had charms next, a class that she was halfway decent at, Lily walked quickly through the halls, again brushing off anyone who tried to talk to her. She was waiting for a section of the floating staircase to connect when James and crew caught up with her.

"Evans," James said, a hint of breathlessness creeping into his voice. Had he been chasing her?

Lily, still lacking confidence in her actions around her grandfather, tried to decide between asking what he wanted and telling him to go away, but instead let the words spill out of her all at once. "Do you want to go away?"

Her cheeks burned at the slip of words. James looked confused. "You okay, Lily? Am I making you flustered?" Behind him, Sirius smirked and Peter giggled. Remus was missing from the group, but since all of the boys seemed at ease, Lily could tell it wasn't a full moon. He must've had a different class this period.

"Don't call me that," she said, at least sure that that was the correct response. James wasn't even fazed.

"Evans, are you gonna tell us what prank you were pulling in the courtyard this morning?" Sirius cut in, wiggling his eyebrows.

"No," Lily replied. "I like watching you squirm when you can't figure something out." She wasn't even sure that Sirius fidgeted a lot, but even from her few brief conversations with him she'd noticed that he was particularly energetic.

Sirius, far from being offended, laughed with delight at the invitation to banter. Fortunately, he was cut off when a new section of stairs connected to the one they were currently standing on, and Lily bounded up them two at a time, leaving the boys to wait for the next to go in the other direction.

"We'll find out your prank, Lily!" Peter called from behind her. Lily rolled her eyes and continued on her way to charms.

Unfortunately it appeared that the Gryffindors had charms with the Slytherins, something Lily found out when she nearly walked into a familiar looking boy as she was making her roundabout way around the desks to get to where Alice, Mary, Marlene, and Hestia were sitting.

The stack of papers in his arms tumbled onto the floor as Lily bumped into them, accidentally slamming her elbow against his wrist and loosening his grip. Her immediate response was to whirl around and apologize, but she suppressed it, unsure of what would be normal for Lily Evans when talking to a Slytherin.

"Lily," the boy breathed, almost reverently, and Lily immediately decided that she was going to be rude. His tone made her skin itch. _Snape_, She realized. The boy from the picture in the bottom of her grandmother's nightstand.

"I don't like you enough for you to call me by my first name," she said, keeping her voice even. She felt confident here, spurred on by his odd reaction to her, and the way he kept his shoulders slumped and shifted his feet as he stared nervously at her. He understandably lacked the intimidating confidence that Mcgonagall exuded, and it let Lily know that she had the upper hand in the conversation.

Snape's eyes flashed with well disguised hurt, bending down to pick up his papers. Lily hoped that she was coming off as cold but not vindictive, and stiffly bent down to hand him his last sheet of parchment.

The boy was still struggling to organize the several sheets he held into one pile, so Lily waited for him to finish, eyes drifting to the paper she held. Snape's messy scribbles covered one side of the page, with one word at the top circled and underlined. _Levare corpus_.

She frowned at the page, confused. The rest of the writing was something about increasing the power of the spell that she couldn't decipher. She was good at coming up with the ideas for spells-actually making them was Albus's job.

"Li...Evans," Snape said, correcting himself, "could I have my paper back, please?" His tone was clipped and controlled.

Lily handed over the paper after taking another glance at the word written on top. "Do you mean _Levicorpus_?"

"What?"

"The spell you've got written on top. It's not _Levare corpus_, that's the latin translation. _Levicorpus _is the spell that holds you up by your ankle." Lily fought down the urge to smile, but was immediately set on edge by Snape's surprised look.

"I-" he stopped himself. "Yeah. Right. Of course." Lily swallowed, a sense of dread coming over her like a cloud. She'd messed something up. Snape would be happier if this was just because she was talking to him, right?

"Miss Evans, and Mr. Snape, if you would sit down so we could start the lesson please," said Professor Flitwick. Snape blushed violently and ducked his head to sit in the back of the large group of Slytherins. Lily took a seat next to Marlene.

Mary tapped her on the shoulder from behind. Checking to make sure Flitwick was too focused on the board to notice anything else, Lily turned around to look at her.

"Lily, what were you doing talking to Snape?" the girl whispered, glancing up at the professor to make sure he wasn't looking.

"He dropped his papers. I wasn't talking to him," Lily replied, rubbing her sweaty palms on her thighs. If Mary hadn't been three desks a way, the lie would've gone off without a hitch, but instead the other girl gave Lily a suspicious look before turning her attention back to the lesson.

Lily sighed. Snape wouldn't dare mention anything to any of the Gryffindors; she could say that. At least, they wouldn't believe him. But the last thing she needed was rumors spreading through Slytherin that Lily Evans had knowledge of spells she shouldn't. This was a mess.


	13. Chapter 13

So sorry for the long wait!

**Thanks to Rs223 for reviewing!**

And to answer your question-I've always assumed that standardized tests weren't at the very end of the year, as at my school we have a few weeks after they're finished to do like, finals (separate from standardized tests) and projects. This probably isn't how it works at most schools, but at this point I've already written it in, so I might as well go along with it. Again, thanks for your review!

This chapter also is separated into a lot of different parts compared to the rest of my chapters, so if that's weird or isn't working within the story please tell me :)

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter or any affiliated characters

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>"Tell me again," Harry said to his wife. "What happened?"<p>

Ginny, her face pressed into his shoulder in her dismay, gave a long sigh. "Rose was pushed into the golden dust. She disappeared. I don't know where she his, and oh, Merlin, Harry what are we going to do?"

"It's okay," he said, trying to soothe her. "Ron's at the Ministry, making calls, or owls, whatever. Hermione's looking up stuff on time turners right now. If anyone can figure this out, it's her, Gin."

"I'm so stupid. Go on, tell me. I am, aren't I?"

"You're not." Harry laughed a little. "C'mon, I let a dark wizard into my head and brought you on a wild goose chase through the Department of Mysteries. If anyone's the stupid one in this relationship, it's me."

The implications of the statement sunk into the both of them. Harry realized what it sounded like-that he was still going over something that had happened when he was fifteen in his head. No matter the embarrassment, it was the unfortunate truth.

The mood had gone even more sour than it was before. Ginny sighed. "You weren't here when two of our children were transported to who knows where."

Harry grabbed her hand before she could anxiously run it through her hair, pulling it down to rest at her side. "We'll find them," he said with false confidence.

Ginny knew he was faking, but she nodded as if she was reassured anyway. "Yeah. C'mon, let's go make sure fifteen year old you doesn't blow anything up."

He had the gall to mock offense.

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><p>Teachers planning lessons streamed in and out of the Hogwarts library, but none of them noticed Hermione, most likely because they couldn't see her. She had sprinted all the way from Hogsmeade, giving a nod to a surprised Mcgonagall overseeing the repair of the Great Hall ceiling, which occasionally played the sounds of fireworks going off during speeches and graduations. Hermione wasn't sure who had caused it, but she wouldn't put it past Albus or even her daughter.<p>

Now she was sitting in an armchair in the library, surrounded by piles of books about time travel that thankfully kept her hidden from people who would come for gossip on the Boy-Who-Lived and his closest friends.

Madame Pince had been rather unhappy with the way she had gotten them stacked. Rather than search through the shelves of the vast library herself, Hermione had simply summoned them all at once. The results included a dirty look from the Arithmancy professor, the librarian's eyes narrowing to slits, and six or so stacks of books around her armchair. She could've been kicked out, but Hermione was no longer just a student-now she was an esteemed Ministry worker and war hero who demanded respect. She didn't like to play that card, but she had people to find.

She picked up a book titled in a different language-Latin, perhaps, though it didn't appear frequently in wizarding texts unless connected to the muggle church. As it turned out, the title was a silly pun and the book was a work of fiction about several witches who accidentally traveled back and time and had to live out their lives in the 1500s. Poorly researched, based on what Hermione already know about time travel.

With a sigh, she tossed it to her discard pile and picked up the next book. This one looked as promising as any of the other books in her stack. It was fairly new, and almost unread, judging by the uncreased spine. It was also labeled _The Department of Mysteries: A Modern Compendium of Time Travel Research._ Hermione thought of the crashing time turners in her one foray into the Department of Mysteries as a teenager, and opened to the table of contents.

_Incantations_

No, that wasn't right. She wondered briefly why this book wasn't in the restricted section if it contained spells that could send a student spiraling into the 1200s with a side effect of death, and then continued.

_Ministry Approved Devices_

Aha, here was the right chapter. Hermione sat up straight in her chair, flipping through the pages of the book as she searched for the right section.

_Passage 138.5-Time Turners_

She already knew how they worked-she had only used one every day for a whole bloody year. She didn't particularly care who invented them, as interesting as it was. She had a mission, and it didn't include tracking down the inventor unless she needed a last resort.

_In the event of a broken time turner, from research conducted by the Department of Mysteries after an unfortunate accident on June 18th, 1996, one should..._

Hermione couldn't hold back her smirk.

_In the event one touches the sand outside of the time turner and disappears, it should be assumed that said person has been transported to an unknown time and should be considered missing. The sand must not be touched by anyone else or they will also be transported. Most likely the time is random, but in some instances, usually when more than one person is transported through one broken time turner, a switch will be made-an item from the time each person has been sent to appears in the time in which the time turner resides. (Croaker and Bode, 1996)._

She filed the information away and kept reading. The section continued until the bottom of the page.

_It is important to note that the location of the transported person is impossible to discern unless the location of where the time sand was inserted into the time turner is known. This is different from the origin of the time sand, which does not affect accidental transportation. (Essely, 2004)._

The next section was about enchanted rocks used by wizards in Southwestern North America. Hermione shut the book and leaned back in her chair. She could keep searching, but the information she'd found was promising. With a sigh, she stood up, and flicked her wand to make the remaining books in her pile fly back to their places.

Madame Pince was waiting for her at the checkout station, glaring at Hermione over the tips of her wire rimmed glasses. "Taking a book, then?"

"Borrowing."

The older woman paged through the text, running her hands over the cover as if she was checking that Hermione hadn't marked it. "Do you have anything to declare, Mrs. Weasley?" she asked as she traced a line under the title.

"It's Granger," Hermione replied. "And no, I don't."

"Very well then, Mrs. Granger. It's against the rules to take library books out of the grounds. I apologize."

Hermione cursed Madame Pince, who hadn't relaxed at all since her school years. "That's alright. I'll just put it away."

"Without hitting anyone in the head, I should hope."

Hermione gave a fake smile to the older woman. "Of course. Why would I ever do that?"

A quick replication spell as she hid behind a shelf left the Hogwarts library with the book, and one copy hidden in her handy beaded bag with an Undetectable Extension charm. She promised herself she would burn it as soon as it outlived it's usefulness-even well copied items eventually degenerated anyway. Madame Pince was none the wiser.

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><p>Lily was exceedingly bored. She supposed she ought to be a bit grateful that no one was in immediate danger, but sitting in a house with half of the rooms off limits was getting a bit dull.<p>

The living room had outlived it's usefulness after she'd taken a look at the mantle and seen wedding pictures of with her in a pretty white dress standing next to a certain man with aggravatingly messy black hair. The floo powder had been removed by James, who had responded to their protests with a roll of his eyes at Harry.

Harry had been drawn to the fireplace since they'd entered the room, captivated by all of the pictures. He was searching through them now, turning the frames over in his hands.

Lily was slumped in the couch, examining the ends of her dark red hair. Losing her battle with frustration, she cast an irritated glance toward Harry. "What are you doing?"

He pretended to look innocent, sticking a hand in his pocket, the other messing up his hair. "Nothing. Looking at pictures."

"So, not nothing then."

With a shrug of his shoulders, Harry said, "You could come look if you wanted. Aren't you interested?"

Lily had to force herself to keep her face a clean slate. It wasn't that she didn't want to look at the pictures, all of the people that would one day be her family, it was just that she didn't want to threaten the future. Memory charms weren't perfect.

Maybe if she was being honest with herself, it was James. There was no situation that she could think of where she and James would be able to make up, or even be friends, let alone married. And yet in front of her there was a boy with emerald green eyes and messy black hair who moved like James and her at the same time. It was unsettling, and Lily wanted to get away from that feeling.

"I'm fine," she managed. Harry turned around to look at her, left eyebrow arched over the tips of his glasses. "Really, it's alright. I'm fine here. Perfectly good. Nice couch, isn't it? You must be rather well off in the future to have such a nice house, yeah? Right…" she trailed off as she realized she was rambling again.

Harry was giving her a sort of bemused look. "Are you nervous or something?"

"I'm _fine_."

He shrugged and turned back to the mantel to sift through the photographs. Lily watched as he picked up one of a small redhaired girl in pajamas grinning from under a Christmas tree, laughing as she brandished a Dumbledore chocolate card up to the camera. Harry handled it with care, gently dusting off the frame with his thumb. It occurred to Lily that the girl must be his eventual daughter.

Abruptly, he put the frame back on the mantel and backed away as if he had seen something terrifying.

"What?" Lily demanded. "What's wrong?"

Harry looked rather shaken, but he inched toward the fireplace, much to Lily's confusion. Slowly, he reached behind two photographs of groups of redheaded and freckled children to pull a cane from behind the mass of things on the mantle.

He let it drop to the floor, staring at it as if it was cursed.

"A cane?" Lily prompted, trying trying to get Harry to talk, with little success. "What's it doing on the mantle?"

"It shouldn't be here," Harry said. "It's Lucius Malfoy's."

"Malfoy?" she stood up to walk over next to him. "That awful prefect?"

Harry shrugged, and muttered something that Lily didn't catch. Frowning, she knelt down and picked up the cane, running her fingers down it's length. "Is this a wand holder?"

"Yes." He seemed to have gotten over his original disgust for the cane and was now leaning forward to examine it. "It shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"Well, why would I-older me, I mean, have Lucius Malfoy's cane? He's a Death Eater."

Lily was not surprised at that, reminded of his discomforting sneer when she had stepped onto the train at the beginning of first year, asking if she was sure she wasn't supposed to be heading to Yorkshire instead of Scotland. She hadn't understood the jab then, but now the memory made her feel an odd mix of anger, derision, and fear.

She put the cane on the coffee table, and stepped back, arms folded across her chest. "I mean, if he's a Death Eater he'd be in Azkaban, yeah?"

Harry nodded stiffly.

"Well, then couldn't you just have kept it? Like, as a…war prize?"

He shrugged, clearing his throat. "Erm, I dunno. I think I would've burned it. I want to burn it now."

Lily sighed. "There's one way to figure this out."

Harry raised his eyebrow. "And that would be…"

"Ask, of course. D'you think if we made enough noise older you would come downstairs?"

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><p>As soon as she reached Hogsmeade, Hermione apparated to Godric's Hollow. Even though the Wizarding War had been over for years, and the remaining Death Eaters were behind bars in Azkaban, the anti-apparition wards were still up. The title of Head Auror didn't come without it's enemies.<p>

Hermione walked up to the front door, feeling odd in the muggle neighborhood, even though she should've have felt perfectly at home. That impression had been creeping up on her lately, in a way she hadn't experienced since she'd received her letter at age eleven. It was the distinct feeling of not belonging. Pushing aside the thought-of course she was normal in a muggle neighborhood, she had grown up as a muggle-Hermione let herself into the house.

Ginny, Lily, and both Harrys were standing in the living room, all four looking very tense.

"Hello, Hermione," Ginny said, interrupting their conversation. "Find anything?"

"Yeah, I did." The mood change in the room was palpable. "It's amazing actually-we inadvertently caused this research to come about, Harry. It was all because of the battle in the Department-"

"That's great, Hermione!" Ginny said, smiling tensely. Hermione stopped talking, realizing her mistake.

"What battle?" Younger Harry demanded, folding his arms. "You're going to erase our memories anyway, you might as well tell us."

"It's not important," Hermione replied.

"It seems pretty-"

"It's _not_ important," she repeated. "Anyway, I found this wonderful book," she pulled her copy out of the pocket of her robes, brandishing it in triumph, "And it's got all of this amazing information about accidental time travel."

"Go on," older Harry said, looking hopeful.

"Well, there was a lot of research conducted some time after 1995," Hermione continued, with a firm look at the younger version of her friend. "And they've discovered that when accidental time travel happens, often two items are exchanged."

"Exchanged?" younger Harry repeated.

"Yes. Mind you, _only_ when it's accidental, or basically when the time turner's broken. One item goes back into the past, another goes forward. That would explain Lily and James's disappearance, and the appearance of these two." She motioned to the Harry and Lily standing in front of them.

"Do the objects switch time periods exactly?" Ginny asked. "I mean, does that mean that Albus and Lily are in 1995 or 1975?"

"One in each year, I'd assume," Hermione answered. "Unfortunately, there hasn't been much research… there were only a few pages in the entire compendium."

"Did Madame Pince let you borrow that book?" older Harry asked. "That's odd."

Hermione became noticeably more flustered. "Well, no. I wouldn't say she _agreed_."

"Ah."

There was a moment of silence as the occupants of the room digested this information. The knot in the stomach of the elder Harry was growing-one of his children was in a situation that he had vowed to never put them in-a warzone. He sighed, running his hands through his hair, his longstanding nervous habit.

Hermione's attention had wandered around the room, passing briefly over younger Harry and Lily. Lily, who had looked quite close to Lily Luna at first, was upon closer inspection very different. The two girls had completely different hair colors, and Lily Evans had a thinner nose and more freckles. Harry also looked similar to Albus, but the scar that Hermione knew rested on his forehead completely skewed her image of him.

Looking around the room, she noticed something odd on the coffee table. A something very familiar.

"Harry," she said quietly. "Please tell me that's not what I think it is."

Younger Harry looked very sheepish, but his elder self just seemed tired. "If you want me to tell you that isn't Lucius Malfoy's cane, I'm afraid you're out of luck."

"We threw that thing in the Lake a decade ago," Hermione said. "But there's no water damage, even though it's made of wood." She wasn't sure why she was still speaked. It was obvious what had happened. The only question was who.

"We haven't thrown this one in yet," older Harry said. "I'm sorry, Hermione."

I'm sorry. They were saying sorry to her. What did that mean? Ron was at the ministry, far away from any trouble at the Potter house. Hugo, bless his likeness to Ron, who despite his hatred for rules and unending curiosity could at least be counted on to be captivated by his chess game for a few hours, so he was still at the house.

That left Rose, wonderful Rose, who had a curiosity matching Hugo's and the determination to take over the world if she put her mind to it, who had already been teased with information about the disappearances of her cousins and would never stop to find the whole story, to be trapped in the only place that Hermione couldn't find her.

She closed her eyes and prayed to the God that she had stopped worshipping when she got her Hogwarts letter. She needed all of the help she could get.

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><p>More than two and a half decades away, Rose Weasley was waking up to a very angry Lucius Malfoy, who happened to be missing his cane.<p> 


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, nor any affiliated characters or plots

Some lines were taken from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

**Thanks to Fayne Rider for reviewing **

Also, writing camp is coming to and end and it's summer, so I should be able to update more frequently for the next two months :)

I've also edited the mistake in the title (I really should've noticed that earlier.) and changed the rating to T based on the cursing in the past couple of chapters, just to be safe.

Enjoy, and please review

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>"Why can't I go?" Sirius was speaking so loud they could hear him from upstairs. "It's not like the Death Eaters are going to turn me in to the bloody Ministry!"<p>

"If you think Lucius Malfoy would even hesitate to call the Minister when Sirius Black shows up at his manor, Azkaban drove you even more insane than I thought."

Hermione and Ron, both huddled around the Extendable Ear with Albus, flinched. Ginny looked like she wanted to go downstairs and break Snape's nose. Having trouble imagining that his father had ever liked this man, Al wondered why he had been named after the sour potions teacher.

There was a strangled shout that was so indistinguishable that Albus couldn't tell if it had been uttered by Sirius or Snape. Then there was halting laughter in Snape's voice. Al felt disgusted.

"This is awful," Hermione remarked, sighing and leaning back onto her heels, bumping into Ron in the process. He made no indication that it bothered him, and she didn't move.

Ginny was clenching and unclenching her fists. "This is ridiculous. I can't believe we're not allowed to listen!"

If anything Albus knew about his teenage parents was true, it was a good idea to try to keep them out of the loop. Given information they might, you know, sneak into the Ministry or something.

"Calm down, sister dear," Fred (Or was it George?) said from behind Ginny. "We're listening anyway."

"Shh!" Al hissed. "They're talking again." The group of teenagers once again huddled around the Extendable Ear.

"Red haired, Lucius said. Draco caught her in the main hall, wand drawn. They haven't killed her… yet." Snape was saying. The room hall downstairs was unnervingly silent. "She looked a bit like a Weasley… but of course, that isn't possible."

"Ginny's upstairs, isn't she, Arthur?" Mrs. Weasley said, voice quivering a little. Albus looked up to stare at the aforementioned girl, whose jaw was set and muscles tense.

"Yes, dear."

"Has she said anything? Mentioned who she is, what she was in the manor for?" Albus frowned at the unfamiliar voice. The man hadn't been at dinner, at least, he didn't think so.

"She was stunned before they let her speak. They had just woken her up when I found a window of opportunity to leave."

"Your window that didn't appear for an hour?" Sirius challenged, sounding disgusted.

"They wanted me to oversee the interrogation." He sounded like he was sneering, but Albus couldn't tell. "It seems Lucius has misplaced his wand holder."

Ron snorted and Fred and George shared vicious grins.

"Anything else, Severus?" Lupin asked.

"That is all I've been told."

"What are they going to do her? Oh, Merlin, what if she's a muggleborn?" Albus recognized Tonk's voice. In between him and Ron, Hermione shifted uneasily.

"We should send a team," Sirius announced. "I'll go."

"We've been over this, Black," Snape replied, haughty.

There was a general murmuring, some of it assent and some dissent. Whether or not the idea was mostly supported was undeterminable.

"Don't be ridiculous!" the unfamiliar man from before cut over the rest of the chatter in a gruff voice. "We don't even know who this girl is. It could be a trap. Constant vigilance, in case you've bloody forgotten!"

"We haven't, Moody, but thanks," Tonks said.

"They can't just not go, can they?" Ginny whispered. "That poor girl. We have to do something."

Hermione and Ron shared nervous glances and then turned to Al, who was still listening. "They still might try," Hermione said, pursing her lips in an expression of uncertainty.

"I think we should sit this one out, at least until we have enough information." Kingsley's voice reverberated even through the Extendable Ear.

"There was one other interesting fact about the girl. I do believe she mentioned her name was Rose."

Albus's heart sank to his feet, and he would've dropped the Extendable Ear if Ginny hadn't also been holding on to the string. He braced himself on the wooden floor, trying to keep his expression in check. Rose, looks like a Weasley, somehow got into the top security mansion of a rich pureblood family. Who else could it be?

Al heard himself mumble something about going to the bathroom, then standing up and retreating to the bedroom. He ducked inside the attached washroom, locking the door and sitting on the closed toilet.

His cousin was stuck in the wrong time in the wrong place, and Merlin knew what those Death Eaters were doing to her… the thought was enough to turn his stomach. What was he going to do? Desperately, Al wished for his siblings. They made a good team, the three of them, and there was a reason they preferred to work together instead of sabotaging each other. It would be so much easier to infiltrate the mansion of a Death Eater if they worked together.

Was that what he was going to do, though? Was he really going to sneak into Lucius Malfoy's house?

Don't be ridiculous, of course you are.

Someone knocked on the door, soft and hesitant. "Harry?" asked Hermione, still in the bedroom.

"Yeah," Al said, all of the sudden wanting to be nowhere near any of his parents' friends. "I… I'm fine." He stood up, strode across the room, and opened the door. Hermione looked nervous and concerned with her arms folded and her weight all on one leg.

"You alright?" she asked, as if he hadn't just told her. "The Order's decided not to go."

Well, that makes things harder, doesn't it? Now, if he tried to go himself, there would be no help from the Order. "I'm fine. Really," he told her when she gave him a disbelieving look.

"Okay, Harry." Hermione sighed. "Look, you've been acting weird since you've gotten here. It's not much, but, it's odd. And now you've run off, which is very, well, you…" She laughed a little before continuing. "But you're acting like you know this girl." There was another awkward silence, and Albus didn't know what to say, because if he opened his mouth he thought he might just tell her everything. "Just, you can tell us, Harry. Okay?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Thanks, Hermione." She nodded, smiled a little, and then followed him out of the room.

The underage members of the Weasley family plus the twins were in Ginny and Hermione's room. Ginny and Ron were talking softly to each other in the corner, arguing over something. Fred and George were playing a very loud game of Exploding Snap next to Ginny's bed.

They all turned to Albus when he walked in, and he wanted to leave. Merlin, telling people what to do was James's thing. Why did his dad have to be so good at it too?

Ginny was the first to speak, turning around and giving Harry a brilliant smile. "So, we're going, right? Because Ron's being awfully pig-headed…"

"I am not!" Ron retorted. "We don't even know who she is! If Moody says it's a trap, then it's probably a trap. There's a reason he's still alive, yeah?"

"And missing a leg and half his nose," George said, eyebrows smoking. It looked like Fred had won the round.

"Shut up," Ron muttered.

"I agree with Ron," Hermione said, leaning on a bedpost. "Think about it. If a girl was skilled enough to get into the manor, past all of the curses and hexes that we can assume are guarding the entrance, how would she be taken down by Malfoy?"

Frowning, Ginny tilted her head to the side. "Malfoy's that much of a coward?"

"He can't take a punch," Ron said. Hermione grinned brilliantly at him, and Al felt like he had missed something.

Taking a deep breath, Albus said, "I think I should go." Hermione was right, it wasn't smart and he was probably going to get killed, but it was Rose. It wasn't like he had a choice, right? Lily or James or Teddy or Rose would all come after him if he was captured.

Ginny stood up, folding her arms and fixing him with a fierce glare. "You should go? You think we're going to be alright with that?"

"You will," Ron said to her. "But we won't." Hermione nodded behind him.

There was a tense air in the room as Hermione and Ron glared at Albus, and Ginny glared at the two of them.

"If you think I'm just going to sit here while you go get killed, then you're wrong," she declared.

Albus opened his mouth to argue, but George beat him to it. "Oh, give it up, Harry. You too, Ron," he added. "Neither of you are going to win this fight."

"That's right," Fred continued for him. "We're going to go give the Malfoys hell."

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>It took two days for Lily to stop being on edge, waiting to start fading, or receive some sign that she'd screwed something up in the timeline. What if Snape didn't finish the Levicorpus spell until after Voldemort died? What if because of it someone died who wasn't supposed too?<p>

After 48 hours of worry, and nothing odd had happened, Lily elected to just stay on guard and make sure she didn't ruin anything else. It was with this disposition that she visited Mcgonagall while the other students in her year took an OWL. Lily was now very glad she'd explained her situation with the elder teacher, because it meant she didn't have to take exams again.

"I apologize, Miss Potter," Mcgonagall said. "I haven't had much time to look into your situation-I have a number of students not quite prepared for their exams that have taken up most of my time."

Lily's enthusiasm dropped a bit-she had been hoping that the professor had found an instantaneous way to bring her back before anything else went wrong, but apparently that wasn't going to be the case. "It's fine, professor. I haven't found anything either. There don't seem to be many books on time travel in the library, at least that I've found." She had looked, and very hard too, spending hours on end in the narrow halls between ceiling length shelves. Her roommates had chalked it up to trying to get ahead for next year.

"Try the restricted section," the teacher suggested. "I'll write you a note-time travel is considered quite dangerous, as you probably know, and there might be more information there. Tell Madame Pince you're researching something for me."

"Thank you, professor," Lily said. She opened her mouth to mention something about giving the spell to Snape, but Mcgonagall had already turned around to look at a stack of parchment. She felt like she had been dismissed. Fingering the piece of paper Mcgonagall had scrawled a quick note and her signature on, she made her way to the library.

Madame Pince barely even glanced at the note, nodding and motioning toward the restricted section before turning back to a stack of books she seemed to be putting away. Lily decided she would actually read the books back in her room, not willing to risk someone asking why she was reading a stack of books on time travel. Sure, there were other girls who could bother her in her room, but she was confident in her hiding abilities.

Lily left the library with a stack of books under one arm. The last OWL had already finished, which meant Marlene, Mary, Dorcas, and Alice would be waiting for her out on the green, probably with the Marauders, who seemed to worm their way into everything, whether or not they were wanted.

It was a nice day; the sun glinted off the lake and the breeze made pleasant patterns in the freshly cut grass. For a moment Lily could forget that she was stuck in an impossible situation and imagine that a bunch of her cousins were about to tap her on the shoulder and ask if she wanted to put itching powder on the toilet seats of the staff bathrooms.

But they weren't, because she was stuck almost 30 years before any of them would be born. Lily knew that her best motivator was a constant reminder of how she'd messed up, so she kept the thought implanted in the front of her brain.

She settled under one of the arches that looked out onto the green, grateful for the shade. Hogwarts uniforms weren't exactly designed for comfort in the hot weather. Feeling sufficiently isolated, she pulled out one of her borrowed books and began to read.

Though the official time turner manual had seemed promising when she checked it out, it was more about how not to brake a time turner rather than what to do if you already had. Not willing to miss a single piece of information because she had deemed the book unhelpful, Lily kept reading regardless.

Students began to stream out of the Great Hall behind her, laughing and chattering, finally free from exams. She caught a few lines of the Marauders' conversation as they traded jokes about the test.

"Loved it," she heard Remus Lupin say. "'Give five signs that identify the werewolf.' Excellent question." Lily hid her giggle behind her book, resolving to tell Teddy about it when she got home.

"D'you think you managed to get all the signs?" James asked, and then they moved to far away from Lily for her to continue listening. She felt peaceful, half in the shade and half in the sun. If she had ever wanted to go back in time she would have wanted it to be like this-just enjoying the experience, listening to people's conversations without having to hide.

The four boys had stopped to gather under a tree, and James was playing with a snitch, lazily letting it go and then showing off his speed as he jumped to catch it. His casual arrogance reminded Lily of her James, and Merlin did she want to go home.

Lily turned her attention away from the green and back to her book, trying to focus on the mechanics of time travel, but it was so hard to concentrate when she didn't understand half of what she was reading.

Her attention was jerked away from the book when someone shouted "_Expelliarmus!_" out on the lawn. She turned around, having been facing the wall in an unsuccessful effort to stay focused, to see her grandfather sporting an almost predatory smile as he stared at Snape, who had lost his wand.

What were they doing?

Behind James, Sirius let out a laugh that in any other circumstances would be joyful, with a flick of his wand putting Snape in a body-bind. Students had begun to gather around the spectacle, some of them egging on the Marauders and other looking wary, as if this was going to be painful for Snape. Lily watched with bated breath, hoping everyone would just calm down.

Sirius and James continued to taunt the boy while the rest of the green watched on, for the most part laughing. Lily felt sick. She did just hate bullies, she didn't understand them. There were so many other ways to get people to like you, and just didn't comprehend why other people couldn't see them. She knew some of it was from carelessness with words-the wrong remark could send someone else spiraling into misery without any warning. Lily got it, she really did. Figuring out the effect of her words before she said them was a Slytherin thing, and something she had trouble with only when she was particularly nervous. But this was no mistake. They were laughing as Snape struggled, trying to reach his wand, which was lying ten feet away. He swore.

"Wash out your mouth," James said, with that unnerving grin still on his face. "_Scourgify!_" Snape was now choking on soap as it flowed out of his mouth into the grass. Lily watched it in disgust for a moment, though with the two Marauders who laughed down at him rather than the soap in his mouth. Think like a Gryffindor, she told herself, and she knew what her grandmother would do.

"Leave him ALONE!" Lily left her books under the archway, striding into the middle of the throng of people, the fury on her fact very, very real.

James ran a hand through her hair, and Lily resisted doing the same, realizing that the familiar habit probably had traces to the very person in front of her.

"All right, Evans?" he asked, as if he was trying to flirt with her.

Even if they hadn't been related, Lily would've been disgusted. What did they want from him? Bullying was always a means to an end, everything was. "What did he do to you?"

"Well," James said, as if he was seriously considering her question, "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean…" A wave of laughter rose up from the crowd.

She decided at that moment that her grandfather was a major asshole. "You think you're funny," she said. Words she knew would get under his skin appeared in her brain and she let them out. "You think a bunch of laughs from children matter? You're just a bully, and that's all you'll ever be."

James faltered, and Lily felt satisfaction creep into her expression. He recovered quickly, and shot back, "If you'll go out with me Evans, I'll never touch Snivelly again."

It sounded like a declaration of bloody love, and Lily felt disgusted. "No. To be honest, I'd rather go out with the Giant Squid."

He faltered again, but this time he seemed to be almost devastated, staring at Lily too forlornly for his previous question to be insincere. She almost regretted her words, but she remembered the soap still dripping out of Snape's mouth, and turned her attention back to him to see Snape's wand pointed at James.

"No!" Lily started to stay, aware that if James died or something, she'd fade too, and wouldn't that be a dilemma for Mcgonagall to explain.

Luckily, Snape's curse only drew a line in blood down James's cheek. As the deep red liquid dripped onto his robe, Potter whirled around and hung the greasy haired boy in the air with a very familiar spell.

Dammit. Had Levicorpus really spread that far in just a few days? Lily was screwed. Lily was very very screwed.

"Let him down," she demanded, voice low and menacing, fixing her wand at James's nose.

He gave her a crooked smile. "Don't make me hex you, Evans."

"Don't make me hex you, Potter." Lily really didn't want to play all of her cards and administer the countercurse herself, but if she had to...

James considered this, and then with a flick of his wrist behind him, Snape slumped back to the ground. "Lucky Evans was here to help you, Snivellus-"

"-I don't need help from mudbloods like her," he snarled, and Lily couldn't help it. Her mouth dropped open. It didn't matter that both of her parents were wizards, but the term was so… archaic and offensive that she couldn't believe that someone had actually uttered the word.

"Fine," she snarled. "I guess that's the last you'll see of me. Wash your pants, Snivellus." Lily turned around, fuming, ready to go bury her nose in a book.

"Apologize to Evans," she heard James demand behind her. That was the last straw; him acting as if he was _any better_.

"Don't be ridiculous, you're not any better," Lily said, hair flaring out behind her as she whirled around. "Sticking your hair up and catching that stupid snitch of yours? Walking around and… and hexing everyone in school because you think it's funny? Your head's so big I'm surprised you can even get your bloody broomstick off the ground." Satisfied with the shocked look on James's face, she turned back to go to her dormitory.


	15. Chapter 15

**Thanks so much to Rs223 and Sunlight for reviewing!**

Anyway, good news. I've planned out the rest of the story (before this I've just been winging it) so that should both up my motivation and make writing easier, so chapters should come faster afters this. I'm really excited to finish this story.

Here's chapter 15! Enjoy :)

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, nor any affiliated characters<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>Hermione turned the cane around in her hands as she walked, nervously dragging her fingers through the carvings in the wood. Ron's steady presence next to her kept her grounded, even though she could feel his hand shaking a little as he kept it wrapped around her other hand.<p>

As if losing Rose wasn't bad enough, the only way she could fix this whole mess was to talk to Lucius Malfoy, who in retirement rarely left Malfoy Manor. He would not make an exception for a "blood traitor," a word that still made Hermione's blood boil.

So they stood outside of the wrought iron gate, carved in intricate patterns that Hermione couldn't make out because she was too focused on the cane in her hands and the memories of screams running through her mind at mile pace. It had been twenty four years since she'd been back here, and she'd avoided it for a reason.

Neither she nor Ron were surprised when it was Draco who greeted them instead of Lucius. "Granger," he said with a mechanical nod. "Weasley."

Hermione and Ron nodded in response, and then stepped through the gate, the iron becoming intangible as they entered the property.

The walk down the long, winding path to the large house in the distance was undeniably awkward. Draco-the decision to address him by his first name had been made when Rose had announced that her best friend was Scorpius Malfoy at the end of her first year-was silent, his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into his pockets. Ron kept a tight grip on Hermione's hand, dragging his feet in the gravel as if he was being pulled unwillingly toward the manner.

The grand door that must have towered twenty feet above them opened without a single touch, like it was a muggle automatic door-a thought that made Hermione stifle a giggle and then berate herself for being ridiculous.

The main hall of the manor was large, and Hermione felt a little more at ease when she realized that she had never seen this part. A thick, rather dusty carpet covered the floor under a large, glimmering chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A large staircase led to rooms upstairs and hallways branched off of the main room.

"Dad!" A tall and lanky blond haired boy came bounding out of a hall to the left, dressed in all muggle clothing except for a faded Weird Sisters t-shirt.

"Scorpius, please-" Draco said, frowning at his son.

Scorpius cut him off. "Ms. Granger! Mr. Weasley! Is Rose okay?" He came to an abrupt halt about five feet away from the adults, his features twisted into an anxious frown.

"I-I don't know," Hermione stammered, alarmed. Her fingers tightened around the cane.

Draco sighed. "Scorpius, please go upstairs. You know your grandfather won't be happy; he's already meeting with blood traitors and if he sees you…"

"What?" the blond haired boy demanded. "Wearing khakis? Well, that's too bad, because I'm coming with you." He folded his arms and made a face almost identical to his father's.

There was a brief standoff between the two, with Hermione and Ron standing awkwardly to the side, watching it unfold. Finally, Draco seemed to realize that Scorpius was too determined to be shunted off to the side while the adults talked.

"Don't speak," Draco told him. Scorpius nodded in response, and then turned to follow his father up the grand staircase, Hermione and Ron in tow.

"That was a bit Gryffindor of him," Ron whispered in Hermione's ear as they reached the first landing.

"Everyone's a little of everything," Hermione replied. "Besides, you could think of it as ambition if you wanted."

Ron seemed to consider this, and they continued their trek up the stairs.

After two more flights Draco and Scorpius led them down a twisting set of hallways with walls and floors of the same dark wood, highlighted by the tinted windows that kept the brunt of the afternoon sun from reaching the inside of the house. With the addition of paintings of Malfoy ancestors that glared down at passerby from their perches on the wall, it felt dark and melancholy. It made Hermione glad to remember the bright windows and soft carpets of her childhood home. The tightening of Ron's fingers around hers reassured her that he was thinking the same.

Draco stopped in front of a large door and pushed it open without knocking. He beckoned them inside.

Lucius Malfoy sat at a desk as dark as the wood around him, in front of an untinted window that shed light into the room, though he was facing away from it so his face was cast into shadow. His fingers were laced in front of him, feet crossed under the desk at his ankle. He smiled as Hermione and Ron entered the room.

"Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. To what do I owe the pleasure? Come to remind me of my irrelevancy to my face?" His voice was cold but he kept smiling, as if he was taunting them.

"It's Granger," Hermione couldn't help but correct. In the corner of her eye she thought she saw Scorpius stifle a giggle. She didn't share the sentiment-this whole house had her on edge and the reminders of Lucius Malfoy with a dark mark on his arm swirling around in her head weren't helping.

Lucius raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything.

"We have something we think may be yours," Ron said, filling the silence perpetrated by Hermione's zoned out state. He kept a reassuring hand gently touching her waist. "You seem to have misplaced it on my friend's mantle."

Now Malfoy looked confused. "I'm sorry?"

Remembering why she was here, Hermione held up the cane. "Isn't this yours?"

He beckoned for it, and she stepped forward and handed it to him. Lucius rolled the cane around in his hand, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. He drew out his own cane, pulling his wand out and placing the case next to the one Hermione had provided. It was easy to see that the two were identical.

"This is a very good replica," Lucius said after a moment, fixing Hermione with a smile. "Fortunately, it seems I have my own with me. I'll take this and have it destroyed. I appreciate that you've taken it upon yourselves to bring it to me."

"Actually," Ron said. "I think I'll be taking it. If there's someone duplicating other people's property then it's a job for the Ministry and this can be used as evidence." Hermione had no doubt that Ron was lying through his teeth, but she mentally thanked him for it anyway.

Lucius pursed his lips with distaste, but he seemed to remember that he didn't have much sway with the government anymore. "Despite what the rest of the world seems to think, the Malfoy family is capable of taking care of our own problems." Still, with obvious reluctance he handed the cane over. A discreet cough came from the direction of Scorpius, and Lucius cast an irritated glance at his grandson before turning his attention back to Hermione. His face was a picture of disgust, as if he had no good choices in the room of who to look at.

Hermione took it from him, ignoring his statement and pretending to examine it. "It's a nice piece. Where did you get it?"

The blond haired man made a face, as if he was disgusted by the fact that she'd just asked him another question. "It was a wedding present," he said. "It would be appreciated If you'd leave me be. I'm very busy, of course."

She very much doubted this, and judging by Draco's miniscule eye roll and Scorpius's barely disguised scoff, Lucius's "busyness" was a bit of a family joke.

"I'm sorry about him," Draco said when they'd reached the door. "He's a little old fashioned."

"It's fine," Hermione replied, a little rushed. She wanted to get out of this miserable house. "Thank you for your help."

As they left, she heard Scorpius call behind her, "Bye Ms. Granger! Bye Mr. Weasley! Tell me when Rose is okay again!"

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><p>The Potter house was surprisingly empty when Hermione and Ron returned. All of its current occupants had promised to keep their mouths shut about the situation until they had a solution to keep things efficient-news tended to travel fast in the Weasley family and panic also set in quickly. However, it appeared no one had spoken about it.<p>

There were people talking in the living room who stopped in an abrupt fashion when Hermione opened the door. She expected Lily to come bounding to the door to greet whoever had come to visit, but she remembered that Lily-her Lily, that was, was trapped somewhere between 1970 and 2000.

They made their way into the living room, where both Harry's, Ginny, Lily, and James were all seated, all looking very tense. Younger Harry had a look on his face that Hermione hadn't seen in years, the look of an irritatingly misunderstood teenager. He glanced up at the two visitors. Hermione smirked as she saw his gaze immediately shift in shock to Ron. She'd forgotten they hadn't met in person yet.

"Hello," Ron said, breaking the silence. He nodded to younger Harry and smiled at Ginny and older Harry before sitting down. Hermione settled next to him.

"Anything interesting happen here?" she asked. "Did you look over the book that I gave you?"

Ginny nodded. "We think Lily is in 1975 and Albus is in 1995-they'd be put in Lily and Harry's places, wouldn't they?"

Hermione considered this. "The book said it depended on where the sand was manufactured, so I have no idea."

"Wait," younger Harry said, surprising all four adults, as neither he nor Lily had seemed very talkative for the past several minutes. "Doesn't time try to keep itself from changing? Erm-" he corrected himself as he saw their disbelieving expressions, "I mean it tries to keep things flowing in the right direction, even if it changes a little. Right?"

The room was silent, so he continued to speak. "'Cause, when we used the time turner during third year-" At this, Lily, who was sitting next to Harry, looked very surprised, "I mean we ended up in the exact right place so I could save myself from the Dementors, even though we didn't know it was me who cast the spell."

"What were you doing with Dementors when you were thirteen?" Lily demanded, sounding concerned.

"It's not important," Harry said, and she sighed.

Ron broke into the conversation. "Wait, let's go back to Harry's point. So you're saying that it makes sense for Lily to be in 1975 and Albus to be in 1995 because time is trying to keep things from screwing up too much?"

Harry looked rather uncomfortable. "Well, I mean, if I'm here and Lily and not Albus is in 1995, then there's a person who is both the wrong gender and doesn't look very much like me-she does take after Ginny, doesn't she?" He directed his question at Ginny, but older Harry answered instead with a nod. "Yeah. But if Albus is there, then at least there's someone to pretend to be me, right? And I mean, the Dursleys wouldn't ask if I was missing a scar or had the wrong nose or something, so it would be okay."

"But what about Lily?" James asked, and Harry jumped, as if he'd forgotten the taller boy was here. "Lily my sister, I mean."

"Well," Lily who was sitting on the couch next to Harry began, "The only thing that's left is for her to go to 1975, yeah? Because it's an exchange."

Across the room, Hermione frowned. "So we're basing this almost completely on common sense?"

"We haven't exactly got anything else, as helpful as that passage in the book was, Hermione," Ginny said softly. "If we go by that train of thought, then Rose would be whenever Lucius Malfoy first lost his cane."

"He doesn't remember losing his cane. At least, that's the impression I got," Ron said. Hermione nodded in agreement.

"Well, then we need to find out where and when the time sand was inserted into that broken time turner," she announced decisively. "Harry, where did you get it?"

"A research project, I think," older Harry replied, his eyebrows scrunching together as he thought. "I definitely got it from the Ministry, maybe even the Department of Mysteries. I can ask," he cut in, before Hermione could ask the same question.

"Good," she said. "Go ask now-I'm going to check on time turner manufacturers to see where the time turner might be from. Ron, Ginny, if you could help?"

Ron nodded. "Of course," Ginny agreed. With a sharp look at Harry and Lily, she said, "Don't do anything stupid. James, watch them, will you?"

Within a few minutes the house was devoid of all adults except for James, who was an exception to the adult rule in even his own opinion.

James flopped onto the couch where Hermione and Ron had been sitting, across from Harry and Lily. He spread his legs out so his feet draped over one arm and his head rested on the other. "So," he said.

"So what?" Lily asked.

"So if your theory's right, Harry, do you think if you and Lily touched the time sand it would do the exchange thing again?" James finished, raising his eyebrows at the two teenagers on the couch.

"I don't know," Harry replied honestly. "Could be. Are we going to try?"

James shrugged. "Dunno. You're the ones messing with time, right?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Lily cut in. "We aren't screwing around with time travel until we actually know what we're doing. Besides, what about Rose? She won't come back unless we put the cane in too."

"Then let's take the cane with us," Harry suggested, a little angry. He liked the future, he really did, but he didn't want to leave anyone with the Dursley's for long periods of time; that would be cruel. He needed to get back to his time if just to fix that, and Lily just didn't understand. Worse than that, he couldn't tell her anything about it because she'd get that look of pity in her eyes and Harry couldn't stand that, especially not from his own mother.

"No, she's right," James said with a sigh, staring at the ceiling. "We should wait for the rest of the adults to come back with their information. What if the cane goes with whoever's holding it? The exchange might only work one way this time. A thousand things could go wrong."

"If the exchange is only supposed to work when two people touch the sand, then how did Rose get stuck? If we put the cane in first, it'll work." Harry said, impatient.

"But the book said that exchanges usually only happen when more than one thing falls in the sand; that doesn't exclude it happening when only one thing falls," Lily reminded him. "We need more information."

Harry stood up angrily, tugging his hand through his hair. "Then what do we do?"

"We wait," James said, sounding miserable as he settled himself more comfortably on the couch.


	16. Chapter 16

Okay so this chapter is really long, and the next one will probably be long too because it's kind of the beginning of the end of this story (!) so yeah. Enjoy :)

**Thanks to HogwartsDreamer113 and Kitamiyu for reviewing!**

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, nor any affiliated characters or plots.<p>

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><p>1995<p>

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><p>"I feel like this is a little rude," Ginny remarked, in the midst of tying her long orange hair into a ponytail.<p>

His mother both had changed a lot and hadn't since she was fifteen, Albus thought. The Ginny he knew was prone to the same odd remarks that made bad situations seem much better in an instant, but she was also more nervous, worrying after James and Al when they played Quidditch in the backyard with no one to cast a cushioning charm if one of them fell. This Ginny seemed confident and relaxed even in the face of breaking out of a top secret meeting place and breaking into another.

"How?" Al asked, rolling his wand between his forefinger and his thumb, the comforting feel of the carved lines against his skin calming him down. He wondered, absentmindedly, if anyone would notice that his wand was different. His father's had no carvings and the wood was a shade lighter.

"Well, we're sneaking off in the middle of an Order meeting. It's like, a bunch of people who are trying to protect us all failing at once."

"Having second thoughts, Gin?" Albus still had no idea which twin was which, but either Fred or George was now leaning against the doorframe of Al and Ron's bedroom, grinning at them with a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

"'Course not," Ginny replied. "Just saying. Are we ready to go yet?"

"I still think we should take better precautions," Hermione said, as they made their way up to Fred and George's room. "The meeting will only last so long."

"When else are we supposed to go?" Ron reminded her. "We've talked about this. Any other time of day Mum'll be making us dust something that hasn't seen light in centuries." This might have been a slight exaggeration, but privately Albus agreed. There was still a line of black under his fingernails from the day they'd cleaned out the cupboards in the parlor.

Fred and George's room was messy, but there wasn't any time to bother about it. "Everyone grab onto me and George," Fred announced. George, to his left, held out an arm like he was a coatrack.

Albus held onto Fred's forearm, Ginny his hand. He felt a nervous twist in his stomach. They'd practiced apparating from the twins' room to Harry and Ron's and then to Ginny and Hermione's with two people clinging to each licensed apparater, but never long distances. If one of them got splinched, then the whole operation was over.

"You know where you're going, right?" Albus asked, trying to deny that he was stalling. He had already described the grounds of Malfoy Manor as well as he could to Fred and George, hoping that not much had changed from 1995 until the summer before fifth year when he'd visited Scorpius that July. He'd said he read it in an old book, and George had asked if he was really Hermione in disguise.

"Yes, Harry," both twins said at the same time. They raised their wands, and with a loud _crack! _The world disappeared.

Albus had forgotten how much he hated side-along. With the addition of the nausea and confusion, Ginny's elbows were digging painfully into his ribs.

They landed exactly where they were supposed to be, next to an ivy covered wall. It looked solid, but Albus knew it wasn't. Even though it was the beginning of August, it was rainy and cool in Wiltshire, and they had landed in the mud.

Albus turned around when another crack sounded. George appeared, Ron and Hermione hanging onto his arm. Ron looked a bit green, but otherwise they confirmed their wellbeing.

"Alright, Harry," Ginny said, drawing her wand. The others followed suit. "Where to?"

Albus was very grateful for that miserable trip to the manor with Scorpius-Draco Malfoy had been out, and so had Astoria, so that left the two boys with Lucius, who in his old age had grown bitter and short tempered, especially after Narcissa had died several years before, widely celebrated in the Wizarding World while her husband was viewed with contempt. Scorpius and Al had spent the whole week finding ways to avoid his grandfather, and one of them included sneaking out of the grounds through a false wall.

He said a quick prayer that he had remembered the right place, and pressed his hand to a spot the ivy didn't cover. Up to his wrist, his skinny fingers and pale palm disappeared into the wall as if it wasn't there.

"Woah," Ron said, behind his left shoulder.

Al smiled at them. "Old houses have lots of secrets. So, Ron and I have the cloak, Hermione and Ginny are doing disillusionment charms, and Fred and George are transfiguring, yeah?"

There was a general murmuring of agreement. Albus pulled out the cloak, glad that his dad had left it in his trunk instead of keeping it on his person-it was James's week to have it and otherwise Albus would've had to explain its disappearance.

With a deep breath, he stepped through the wall. The grounds of the manor were as well kept as they would be in almost thirty years-neatly trimmed lawns, flower pots overflowing with plants that couldn't be native to England, and… was that a peacock?

Albus glanced behind him to see four faint outlines behind him instead of two. Fred and George must have put the charms on themselves to get into the house. It was a good idea; Albus felt a little stupid to have not thought of it himself.

He felt an arm touch his through the invisibility cloak, and whirled around to see the outline of a rather bushy ponytail. Hermione was holding onto his elbow to keep from losing Albus and Ron. Al wondered how she'd seen them, and then remembered that it was raining and they were walking on dirt paths. He began to walk toward the side of the house, where he knew there was a servants' door.

Just as Albus and Ron were nearing the steps that lead down to the door-it was in the cellar, it swung open. Ron immediately pulled Al to the grass so they weren't making footprints. There was a tug on Al's elbow as Hermione was jerked along with him. He hoped Ginny, Fred, and George had managed to get out of the way as well.

Snape, looking very angry as his hair began to cling to his face in the rain, turned toward the main gate of the manor with a flourish and the flick of his robes behind him. He paused for a moment and stared right at Albus.

There was absolutely no way he could see them-Hermione was brilliant with disillusionment charms and the invisibility cloak didn't get holes, but Snape's glare made Albus uncomfortable anyway. Finally, with a wrinkle of his nose at the sky, the professor began his trudge to the front of the manor, leaving trails of muddy footsteps that disappeared quickly in the downpour.

Since the wall around the manor was nearly foolproof unless you knew someone who lived inside, they'd figured that security in the gardens would be a little lax, minus the Death Eaters who had to be hanging around.

"_Alohomora_," Ron whispered, but the lock didn't turn. Albus wanted to hiss at him to do the spell silently, but then he remembered that wasn't taught until sixth year.

Luckily, they'd planned for enchanted locks. Albus and Ron stepped out of the way as the outline of either Fred or George stepped up to the lock. After a few hand movements that were impossible to make out, the lock made a clicking sound and the handle turned. The twin who had picked the lock opened it a small crack and slipped through.

Al and Ron were the last two inside. They were in a cellar that appeared to be stocked with food. It was also blissfully empty and silent.

"Snape must have stayed here late for a meeting," Hermione whispered, impossible to see in the dim lighting. "That means there'll be an army throughout the house."

"It also means that Rose is here," Albus replied, also in a whisper.

He heard a sigh, and then Hermione said, "You sound like you know her. You know, personally."

"Good luck, Hermione," he said, trying to drop a hint. She seemed to have caught it, because she didn't say anything else.

"Everyone know the plan?" Ginny's voice came from near the only exit in the room, a dim hallway.

There was a chorus of quiet agreement. With the knowledge that the manor had five floors, including the cellar, it had been decided that each of the groups would comb two except for Albus and Ron, who would get the first and largest story.

The six teenagers dispersed, and Albus and Ron found themselves in the entrance hall of the large manor.

"Where first?" Ron breathed into Al's ear.

"There's probably a library around here, right?" Al replied. He knew the library was on the first floor, but its exact location had escaped him.

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "Yeah, that's a good idea." They started toward the corridor at the other end of the room, careful to keep in step with each other. Ron was almost tall enough for the cloak to show his ankles.

There was hushed murmuring in the library. The two boys stopped right next to the doorway, trying to press their ears into the wall in an attempt to eavesdrop.

"Something about legitimacy?" Ron guessed, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Legilimency," Al corrected, louder than he'd intended. No one in the library seemed to have heard, but there was scuffling around the corner of the hall.

"Did you hear that?" one voice said.

"Sounded like kids," said another.

Next to Albus, Ron shifted his weight. "There are two," he hissed. "We can each take one."

"We're both under the cloak."

"Then one of us has to leave. It's the only way-or else it'll be like one person fighting two if both of us have to move together." Ron was frowning and his whispers were beginning to rise in volume.

"Okay, okay," Albus said. "You take the cloak."

"No, Harry. They'll kill you!"

"They'll kill you!" But Ron had already shoved off the cloak, darting across the doorway toward the intersecting hallway. Albus stifled a curse, but moved to follow the taller boy.

Ron hadn't approached his wizard when Albus got to the end of the hallway. Al darted around the corner. His Death Eater was pretty short and stocky, gripping his wand tightly and glaring at the walls as he strode through the house, away from his fellow guard. Perfect.

A quick stunner got rid of him-Al could cast them silently and he had the help of the invisibility cloak. A shout from the other end of the hall told him that Ron was having a harder time. He whirled around and ran back toward the sound of the fighting-bugger the cloak, he had bigger problems, to see Ron pinned to the wall by the wizard he'd been deuling.

"Intruders!" the wizard shouted, his grin and eyes wider than they should've been. Al remembered he was still clutching the cloak and threw it on over his head, raising his wand to help Ron.

He didn't get a chance to. Someone with very bushy red hair caught the Death Eater around the middle and tackled him to the ground, like they were playing American football. Ron slumped to the ground. Al stepped forward and stunned the man, and then pulled off the cloak.

"Rose!" The girl whirled around as he spoke, her hair circling her head like a cloud. She frowned at Albus in confusion, and he remembered that he still looked like his dad.

"How do you my name?" Rose demanded.

"We've come to rescue you," Ron said.

"Well," she said with a _hmmpf!_ "You're a bit late, if you haven't noticed. I've already gotten away."

All three of them froze as they heard laughter coming from near the library. "Did you hear that? She thinks she's gotten away!" someone said.

"_Damn_." Albus muttered. "We need to-" His wand shot out of his hand and into the air, flipping end over end as it fell. He could see the arc of its fall, exactly where it would end up and how he needed to move to catch it, but suddenly his limbs wouldn't move.

A body-bind. Of course. Ron looked restrained as well, but Rose was watching them with wide eyes, as there must've only been two wizards attacking them. She shook her head, backing up and looking behind Albus with a nervous grimace. "I haven't got my wand. I'm sorry, I really am." Rose turned on her heel and sprinted down the hall, turning the corner just as the curses that had been chasing her hit the wall with a _hiss_.

All of the sudden, there was a shriek coming from somewhere Al couldn't see, and then two more Death Eaters turned the corner with Rose's forearms clutched in their arms, lifting her up so only the tips of her toes dragged on the carpet. She struggled again, letting out a shout when their grip tightened.

"You idiots." A woman with long, curly black hair strode into the scene from behind Albus and Ron. "Restrain her properly. We'll have _fun_ later." The woman who Al realized must've been Bellatrix Lestrange, put on an unsettling grin and tapped Rose's chin almost tenderly.

"Very well, Bellatrix." Lucius Malfoy, recognizable by his characteristic long blond hair, had entered as well. "We'll have to apparate out-the Dark Lord wants our audience immediately, with the girl _and_ Harry Potter."

Albus thought Ron looked almost offended at the lack of mention of his name, but he pushed it to the back of his mind-it wasn't important right then. Lucius Malfoy lifted his wand and flicked it, presumably disabling the anti-apparition wards. Just then several _cracks! _sounded around the manor. There was the scuffling of feet and the shouting of spells. Bellatrix grabbed Rose and apparated out of the building.

Malfoy had his hand on Al's shoulder and his wand in the air when he was knocked over by something, sprawled on the ground and tangled in his robes, struggling to get up. Out of the corner of his eye, Albus saw a triumphant Ginny with Hermione rounding the corner behind her.

Hermione muttered the countercurse, and Al picked up his wand to see that she'd freed Ron too.

"The Order is here," Ginny said. She stopped Albus from going back into the entrance hall with a hand on his chest. "Harry, be careful. They're kind of angry."

With a thankful nod in her direction, Albus started down the hallway, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron following him.

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><p>1975<p>

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><p>It was the weekend before the end of term, and Lily was running out of ways to avoid people. All exams were over, so she couldn't be studying so much anymore, and her roommates seemed to be realizing that she hadn't had a real conversation with them in about two weeks.<p>

It was a rainy day when she used an excuse she figured would work about once: she was writing a letter to her sister. At home, she had very little contact with her Great Aunt Petunia; the last time they'd seen each other it had been at the end of the school year as she and Uncle Dudley were waiting to pick up Penelope from the train. Lily liked Penelope-she was a mild, nice person; a good break from the chaos of the rest of their family.

She had known somewhere in the back of her mind that her grandmother hadn't got on very well with her sister, especially since Petunia seemed to turn up her nose whenever magic entered the conversation. Lily had been nervous bringing it up when Alice suggested they play Wizard's Chess in the common room.

"I thought your sister hated you," Marlene remarked rather bluntly. Mary smacked her on the shoulder and Hestia rolled her eyes.

Lily bit her lip. "She's still my sister. I'd feel bad if I didn't write."

This, apparently, was in character, as the four other girls accepted the response and went back to their game. It didn't take much skill to see that Alice was going to win-in four rounds Marlene had already lost a knight and a rook. As far as Lily had seen, she was more in it to watch the pieces get hacked to, well, pieces whenever they were captured than win the game.

Lily went straight to the library, taking refuge at a secluded table tucked between the section on time travel and the section on inventing potions. A few students that she supposed were N.E.W.T. level were muttering to each other as they stared at the other side of the potions bookshelf, but Lily was sure they couldn't see her.

She took out the next book on her reading list-a compendium of time travel incidents with some Latin title that Lily couldn't pronounce. The first chapter was pretty boring, but she got about halfway through before she was interrupted.

"Hey, Lily." James slid into the seat next to her with the other three Marauders in tow. He rested his arms on the table, Sirius leaned back in his seat and Remus adjusted his glasses. Peter was frowning at Lily in a way that made the hairs on her arms stick up.

"Alice said you were writing a letter," Peter remarked.

"Oh," Lily replied, flustered. In an abrupt motion she shut her book and slid it into her bag, hoping they hadn't seen the title. "I've finished."

"Why didn't you send it?" Lily's gaze flicked over to Sirius in surprise. He raised an eyebrow and put his hands behind his head so he could rest his neck.

"I wanted to read." Remus was biting his lip, which Lily took as a good sign-he seemed reluctant to go through with whatever they were doing. Unfortunately James and Sirius were still looking at her like she was prey. Peter seemed caught somewhere in between.

"Okay," James said. "So, Potter, who were you writing to?"

_Shit. _Had he just called her Potter? Did he know? No, of course not. It had to be a mistake. Still, Lily felt like there was something off about this entire confrontation. "Erm, sorry, James, but I haven't married you. I dunno why you're calling me Potter." _Direct eye contact is essential in telling a convincing lie_. James's eyes were hazel with golden flecks in the middle. Lily thought they looked much nicer when he wasn't squinting in distrust.

Sirius shifted again, and Lily traced his movement without moving her head. He pulled out a piece of parchment and began to fiddle very obviously with it, folding it in his fingers and squeezing the creases together in his palms. James broke his gaze from Lily's face to smack Sirius on the arm and nod at the parchment. Sirius fixed him with a glare and then tenderly unfolded it.

What could be so important about a stupid piece of parchment that would make Sirius be so careful? Was it enchanted or something? _Oh_. _Oh no._ They'd found her out, then. Was there still a way to get out of this? Maybe if she denied it enough they would give up.

"See something you like, Potter?" Sirius asked in a sultry voice. Lily flicked her eyes away from the parchment to look at him as he wiggled his eyebrows, a smirk spread across his face.

"My name's not Potter. Maybe the real wedding here was to you and that parchment. You look like you're handling your true love there, Black."

"You can deny it all you want, but we have proof," Peter said in a quiet voice. Remus let a loud breath out of his nose, as if he was trying to scoff without making a sound.

"Right," Lily declared. "This is ridiculous. You've already screwed with me enough this year, Potter, don't make it worse." She slung her bag over her shoulder and stood up.

James stood up at the same time, and she cursed the fact that he was the taller one. "Yeah, this _is_ ridiculous. Why don't you tell us why there's an imposter in the place of Lily?"

"An imposter? What the hell?"

"An imposter." Sirius was standing now too, and Peter. Remus looked reluctant to get into the fight, still seated and resting his chin on his palm. "We think you're a time traveler. Why else would the map say Lily Potter? James hasn't got any Lilies in the family." Sirius folded his arms and fixed Lily with a glare.

"Map? What map? Have you gone mad?" _Eye contact, eye contact, eye contact_. What was she supposed to do when she was lying to more than one person?

James sighed. "The map doesn't lie, Lily."

"Well." All four of them turned to Remus. "I mean, it could have some flaws; we only finished it last year-"

"-Shut up," Sirius interjected, pouting.

"Ignore Remus-" James started, but Lily had already begun to storm away toward the inventing potions section. She whirled around the corner of the bookshelf and slammed right into Severus Snape.

She'd fallen over, but he hadn't, and he glared at her for a moment with wide, angry eyes before breaking into a sprint toward the library exit. Lily stood up, cursing herself for letting the conversation get so loud.

"Was he listening to us?" James demanded, putting a hand on Lily's shoulder.

Oh, _Merlin_, if Snape knew too… and he was a Death Eater, or soon to be. This was a disaster. "The map," Lily said.

"What?"

"The Marauder's Map! That's what that is, yeah?" Lily was yelling at Sirius now, who stood stock still in the middle of the corridor between the bookshelves, the bloody piece of parchment locked in his fingers. "Open it!" she demanded, and he, still in shock from her display of knowledge, muttered the passcode and tapped his wand on the paper. Lily watched with satisfaction as the familiar lines of ink spread themselves across the parchment.

"Give it," she continued. Sirius, moving like he was walking through Jell-O, handed it over to her.

"How-" James began, but Lily shushed him and focused on the map. _Damn it_. Snape was already too close to the Slytherin common room to confront.

Lily cursed and shoved the map back into Sirius's hands. She leaned against the bookshelves and groaned. She was so screwed the bloody drill had run out of gas.

"Did Snape hear us?" James's voice cut into her misery.

"Probably," Lily replied. "Why'd you have to do that in a public place, huh? D'you know how stupid that was? Why couldn't you have kidnapped me or something?"

"You would've rather had us kidnap you?" Sirius asked, incredulous.

Lily sighed and slid down the bookshelf to sit on the ground. "No."

"So, you _are_ a time traveler," Peter said, breaking the silence between the five of them. Lily sighed, and figured she couldn't deny it anymore. With a distrustful glare at Peter, she stood up and shook imaginary dust out of her skirt.

"We're not doing this here. Does anyone else live in your dormitory?"

They shook their heads, and Lily turned around to go to Gryffindor Tower.


	17. Chapter 17

This is a new POV, but it's only here for a short time, so you won't have to deal with it for long if you don't like it.

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><p>Disclaimer-I don't own Harry Potter, nor any affiliated characters or plots.<p>

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><p>2022<p>

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><p>Mervyn Nott was completely confident that this project was going to work out. He smiled in a satisfactory way at the neat, organized desk in front of him-files stacked in symmetrical piles, old memos folded and placed in cubbies with a careful hand, and new ones locked in the cage on the windowsill, disturbing the silence by banging on the bars. Most importantly, the time turner sat in the middle of the desk, polished until it shone in the sunlight that Magical Maintenance had blessed them with that day.<p>

Nott sat in his cushioned chair, his hair parted to the side, his robes pressed just that morning, and his hands folded in his lap.

There was a knock on the door. In a swift motion, he strode to it and opened it to see his boss.

"Morning, Nott," Nicole Belby said, pulling a quill out from behind her ear. "Been busy, I hope." The quill suspended itself in midair, and then began to scribble on the clipboard that Belby released as well. "I have," she continued, eyes unfocused as if she was thinking about something else. "Harry Potter's come in, did you hear? He thinks his kids are stuck in a different time-he said one of them was in 1975, definitely. Maybe she'll come home with a pipe full of gillyweed-Merlin knows that's what _my_ friends were doing in the seventies."

Mervyn found his interest piqued. Belby would tell him the problem, and then he would present her the solution-it was sitting on the desk right in front of her! "How did that happen?"

"A broken time turner, of course," she replied. "The higher ups say there's been some sort of exchange-one person for another, maybe? Potter said he's got a different Lily in his house right now. I don't know. That family is always getting up to something weird."

Mervyn struggled to think of the brief Wizarding family history lessons his father had given him over summer breaks from Hogwarts. The only Lily he could remember was the first Lily Potter.

"I have been busy, ma'am," Mervyn smiled without showing his teeth, glad to have reminded Belby about the troubles of time travel. He sat down at the desk chair.

"Oh, don't give that ma'am rubbish," Belby said with a roll of her eyes. "Just Belby is fine. You know that."

"Noted, Belby," Nott agreed, uttering the same phrase he said every time she corrected him.

Belby settled herself in the chair on the other side of Mervyn's desk, the clipboard and quill following her. With a wrinkle of her nose, she checked the clipboard, frowned, and then slapped the quill almost out of the air. "The meeting hasn't even started yet and you're already taking notes!" The quill picked itself up and shook its feather at her indignantly. It continued to scribble on the clipboard.

"Sorry about that," Belby continued. "The Ministry's made the bloody quills mandatory. I hate them. Anyway, let's get started, shall we?"

Mervyn smiled. He could do this. He'd prepared-he'd even memorized his speech! This was going to be his big break.

"Nott, this is _not_ happening," Belby said, eyes wide in shock as she stared down at the time turner. It seemed she hadn't noticed that she'd just told the worst joke of all time on accident. "Long distance time travel? This is something for the Department of Mysteries. To confiscate."

Mervyn wasn't sure where he'd gone wrong. He'd explained the theory and then the benefits, but Belby seemed convinced that he was out to destroy the world. "But imagine being able to change time-to keep people from dying!"

"Look," she said, standing up now, the clipboard no longer floating but clenched in her hands, her knuckles beginning to go white and the quill fluttering aimlessly around her head. "Everything's turned out alright, hasn't it? Voldemort's gone-"

-Mervyn gave an instinctive frown-

"-and yeah, people died, but we're safe now. What if this technology you've just shown me changes that?" Belby sighed. "Nott, I'm going to give you twenty four hours to hand this over to the Department of Mysteries. That's final," she added before Mervyn could protest. "I'm sorry."

The door slammed behind her. Nott slumped backward in his chair, running a hand through his neat hair, mussing up the gel and making strands stick up in the back.

"Nott, is it?"

Mervyn hadn't noticed that the door was open. He looked up, expecting to send whoever it was away feeling bad for disrupting his misery and not reading the nametag on the door. With one glance at his visitor's face, he revised that expectation, straightening his sweater and trying to re-comb his hair. "Mr. Malfoy. Erm, how can I help you?"

He had never met Mr. Malfoy-just Scorpius when they'd both taken Arithmancy. They'd exchanged maybe ten words in total over the course of the year. Lucius was taller and lankier, with his long blond hair beginning to show streaks of silver and wrinkles setting in around his eyes and on his forehead. His back was the slightest bit hunched, though everything else about his posture was proud and haughty.

"I notice that Mr. Potter is leaving. I don't suppose he came to ask about anything time travel related?" Malfoy stopped in front of Mervyn's desk, both hands resting on his cane.

If the Ministry wouldn't give him funding, maybe the Malfoys would. "He did. He thinks one of his children is in 1975."

Malfoy seemed to take this in stride, nodding slowly. He turned to look around the office, and Mervyn felt a bit like those ridiculous reality show contestants on Wizarding Wireless, waiting to be thrown off the island because he wasn't good enough.

Finally Malfoy's gaze settled on the time turner still sitting on Mervyn's desk, an unpleasant reminder of what he was going to have to do in just a few hours. "This isn't a normal time turner," Malfoy remarked.

"It's long distance. It goes back further than a normal one," Nott said. Forget his office, this was the real judging.

"How much longer?"

"How much do you need?" Mervyn looked up from the time turner to see Malfoy's gray eyes staring back into his.

He jerked backward, still gripping his cane. "Can it take me to 1975?"

That was not what Mervyn had expected, but so far almost everything he'd expected Lucius Malfoy to be like was wrong-he was far more unsettling. "Yes." Nott paused before he decided to ask the question on the tip of his tongue anyway. "Do you want to change it? The war, I mean. Its outcome."

"The Notts served the Dark Lord well," Malfoy said, smiling a little, though he looked uncomfortable. "How hard did you have to work to get even here, Mervyn? Imagine if you'd had help-how high you'd be by now. And your father, he'd be renowned by all instead of a war criminal, your mother hosting parties instead of… doing whatever she's doing. Isn't that what you want?"

Mervyn put his hand on top of the time turner in almost a protective gesture, studying Malfoy through squinted eyes. "If you want to change things, why don't you just kill Lily Evans? She's here, in this time. Wouldn't that be easier that using an untested time turner?"

Lucius sighed, and stifled what Mervyn thought might have been a roll of his eyes. "Yes, sixteen year old Lily Evans is in 2022. She's also in Harry Potter's house, protected by the best the Boy Who Lived can afford and also all of those bloody Weasley's. Trust me when I tell you she's impossible to reach. However, in 1975, before anyone knew what was coming?" He smiled. "That's when I can get to her. Or, Lily Potter, really, but I can get rid of her and warn the Dark Lord in one fell swoop. The only question is if you'll help me." He fixed Mervyn with a cold glare.

"Will you fund me?" Malfoy looked surprised, so Mervyn continued. "I mean, when you get back-the Ministry won't fund my time turner project. Will you?"

"My dear boy, when I get back you'll have enough money to fund whatever you want."

Mervyn imagined that-no more hard times for him or his parents. His father would be able to hold a steady job without a criminal record, and his mother wouldn't have to worry so much about appearances since the very name Nott would be one of power. Mervyn himself would have dozens of patents with the sufficient funds for his various projects.

"Alright," Mervyn said. He slid the time turner across the desk until it rested in front of Malfoy. "You can take it."

With a smile, Malfoy accepted the time turner. He stood up from his chair, shook Mervyn's hand, and turned to leave. He paused in the doorway, one hand on the knob, and smiled back at Nott in a way that no longer reached his eyes. "You won't regret this."

Mervyn hoped not. He was still supposed to turn that in tomorrow.

* * *

><p>The Ministry had been entirely useless. Harry shouldn't have been surprised-it had never been very helpful to him in the first place, but he was disappointed. Even the Department of Mysteries had stopped experimenting with time turners after a second accident in 2002, which meant they had nothing to offer Harry but stern reminders of the laws regarding time travel and suggestions for more research, as if he and his family hadn't already combed through the sources they had access to. Getting anything done would require a court order, which could take weeks. Of course, Harry had submitted it, but he was getting antsy-he just wanted his children back. Did they really need to review his credentials countless times when he asked for help?<p>

He shook soot out of his hair as he stood up in front of the fireplace, the green flames beginning to die down behind him.

"Harry!" Ginny said, turning around from her conversation with Hermione and James. "Did the Ministry have anything to say?"

With a sigh, he shook his head. "Nothing right now. They might be able to help in two weeks, but time travel has a lot of… restrictions around it." He ran a hand through his hair, sighing again. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a few days and tear apart the Ministry until he found a way to his children at the same time. "So basically all I did was waste time."

"Well," Ginny said. "I don't know about that. We found some interesting information about the time turner, didn't we, Hermione?"

Hermione smiled. "We described the time turner to a maker in Knockturn Alley, and he said it was a lot older than we thought. Decades, even. It was manufactured for a rich Malfoy who'd been expelled from the family and made her money selling illegal potions-things that turn people into other creatures and such. She lived in Surrey, surprisingly. To annoy her family, I'd assume. Anyway, the maker's father was in charge of the business then, and he wrote in the records that he'd made a house call for this one-apparently a lot of people respected Edrea Malfoy for leaving her family, so he did her a favor."

"So either Al or Lily ended up in Surrey at some point in time," Ginny summarised. She seemed to realize that this was far too general to do anything with as the words left her mouth, her lips turning down in a frown.

"No, wait," Ron said. "If we go by Harry's theory-not you," he interjected, nodding at older Harry. "I mean, younger Harry's theory that time is trying to correct itself-why don't you tell us that again, yeah?"

"Erm," Harry said, shifted his weight uncomfortably like he was shy as he sat on the sofa. "Well, if we assume time tries to correct itself, you know, keep things flowing in the right direction and all, then wouldn't Albus replace me, because he at least looks a little like me so it would be less noticeable?"

Her arms crossed, Hermione sighed. "If we assume, which is never something to do when talking about experimentation or research…"

"But we've had some experience with it," older Harry reminded her. "Remember third year? We ended up in the exact right places at the right times to make sure Sirius got out okay and the dementors didn't kiss me, even though we didn't really know what we were doing. He-me, whatever, has to be right."

Younger Harry nodded along with this. Hermione didn't seem convinced, however. "That's still very vague, Harry. What do we do if we're wrong?"

"Then we make up a new plan on the spot; we're good at that," Ginny cut in before they could yell at each other. "Look," she continued in response to a glaring Hermione. "We're not going to get any further along with this without further experimentation, which is going to take ages. This is our best bet, and we might as well take it."

There was a general murmur of agreement throughout the room. Hermione sighed. "Alright. Fine. So Lily's in 1975 and Albus is in 1995."

"Agreed," Ginny replied. "Now all we've got to do is figure out how to get them back."


End file.
